


sunshine on our backs

by whip_pan



Series: you were a kindness [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Era, Commitment, Divorce, Established Relationship, Falling In Love, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Minor Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-War, Ron meets his son, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:57:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7571506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whip_pan/pseuds/whip_pan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war is ending, but Carwood and Ron don't want to let each other go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fic that I wanted to write as soon as I finished the series in early May. Carwood and Ron really captured my heart when they smiled at each other in that church, so I knew I just had to explore what a relationship between them could be like. The first part is basically written and in the editing stage right now, and the second and third parts are outlined and partially drafted. I do intend each part to be its own self-contained story, but hopefully together they'll become a portrait of their lives. 
> 
> Thanks to theonceandfuturecaptain for being an absolutely wonderful cheerleader and beta <3 You gave me the confidence I needed to start posting this beast. And thanks so much to everyone who supported me in the development of this idea when I posted little snippets of it on tumblr. The title of the series is taken from a song by The National of the same name. The title of this first part is a bastardized version of another song by The National called “Sunshine on My Back,” more for the mood it calls to mind than the lyrics.

“Sink’s throwing a party tonight,” Ron said from the doorway of Carwood’s billet. 

“I heard,” Carwood said without looking up from his half-finished report. Ron was the only one who walked into his quarters without knocking. He’d grown used to Ron stopping by, sometimes greeting him like they were already in the middle of a conversation, or else just sneaking in and waiting until Carwood noticed he was there. 

Carwood heard Ron shut the door before sitting down on his bed. “You should come.” 

Carwood looked over at him from his place at his desk. “I don’t know.”

“It’s for everyone, not just officers.” Ron had a Hershey bar in his hand. He broke it in half and handed one over. “Although you are an officer.”

“So you like to remind me.” Sometimes Carwood thought Ron took more pride in it than him. “I thought I’d use the quiet to catch up on paperwork.” Never in his life had he seen so much paperwork. He supposed it was even worse for higher-ups, but apparently ending a war required a paper trail glutted with signatures from ranks both high and low. He nearly bit into the chocolate, but thought better of it. He wanted a cigarette instead. 

“Most of Easy will be there, I got them out of guard duty. There’ll be gallons of booze. And women, apparently.” Ron winked, not that Carwood didn’t already know he was teasing. 

“Can I have a cigarette?” Carwood asked, still half-distracted. Amused, he added, You’re not doing a very good job of selling this.” 

Ron fished out his pack - he’d taken lately to putting them in a slim silver cigarette case that reminded Carwood of something society ladies would use - along with a lighter, one of the three Carwood knew Ron had on his person at any given time. This one was carved with someone else’s initials: F.B.W. Ron stuck two cigarettes in his mouth and lit them as one. Carwood thought he tasted chocolate on the end of his when he took a drag. 

“I’ll be there, how’s that?” Ron said, blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth in a bluish stream. 

Carwood mirrored him. This cigarette tasted a great deal better than the one he’d bummed off of Luz that morning; it had been a shitty Pall Mall that made his throat ache. Ron always managed to scrounge up unfiltered Lucky Strikes. When Carwood was just sitting around - trying to get to sleep, for instance - and his thoughts wandered to Ron, as they did more often than not, he fixated on the label’s red bullseye, how Ron’s fingers nearly covered it all up when he held the carton. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, and I want you there.” 

Carwood checked to make sure the door was locked before sitting down next to him, close enough their shoulders brushed. Ron’s eyes were dancing. “There’ll be fireworks,” he added. “A belated Independence Day.”

“Well, now I have to come.” 

“The fireworks are a bigger draw than me?” 

“What’s your plan?”

“No plan.” Ron sat back, looking up at the ceiling. He wasn’t wearing an undershirt. Carwood glimpsed the smattering of dark hair on his chest where he neglected to button up. 

It startled him daily how he could see little things like that and feel desire. Although he didn’t recognize it at first for what it was, he’d felt it since the first moments he saw Ron. Before, he couldn’t have said he ever looked at a man that way, but now he craved whatever he could glimpse - Ron’s steady hands, which were marked with callouses, the whorls of soft hair at the nape of his neck, the pink tops of his ears. He looked at Ron when he strode around; he always seemed to be going somewhere important, even if Carwood knew for a fact that he wasn’t. The other day he had caught Ron dozing in the sun, his back to a stone wall, and stared at the way he looked with his hands crossed behind his head until Ron had opened one eye and said, “And you keep berating me about subtlety.” It had taken Carwood a quarter hour to fight down his blush. 

He figured the war must have started it somehow. Likely right when Ron had skidded in front of Dike and relieved him from command. Ron had looked so serious then, his helmet low, gun shining in his arms. His eyes had been bright and steady as he turned towards Carwood to ask for an update on the situation. Two barked commands and Easy had been back on its feet. 

But now, far away from that moment, Carwood knew the way he felt went beyond the war, went deep into the well of his soul. He didn’t know what that meant, if he was queer and only realized it now, or if Ron simply resisted categorization, but he found it didn’t matter. Ron had laughingly referred to himself as queer one evening, admitted he’d do it with women but always liked it best with men. Carwood had blushed when he heard the declaration. It was just like Ron to speak so brazenly, but Carwood didn’t know if he’d ever be able to say it aloud. Regardless, this was the situation and he wasn’t about to give it up. 

He smoothed down Ron’s collar, thumb brushing his skin. Ron looked at him, the first hints of a smile playing at the edge of his mouth. He yanked Carwood down and kissed him, gentler than Carwood thought he might. They’d been doing this as often as they could lately, necking like teenagers behind closed doors and in the dark. That was another thing that startled Carwood, how he could kiss Ron for five minutes and feel as satisfied as if he spent the whole day in bed with him. 

“You remembered I love fireworks,” Carwood said once he rolled onto his back. There were water stains on the ceiling, thin cracks spidering out in all directions. He had told Ron half that story over dinner at the Officers’ Club last week. The second half, Bastogne and the trees that splintered like old toothpicks, he had told much later, more into Ron’s neck than anywhere else.

“It was spectacular,” Ron had agreed. “I remember I couldn’t stop imagining what it looked like from above, the men all scrambling like ants into anthills to get out of the line of fire.”

Carwood had thought about that before he went to sleep that night and felt a little sick imagining the men as bugs.

“Of course,” Ron said, rolling onto his side, right up against Carwood. His body was always warm, and Carwood appreciated how he seemed to have a compulsive need to share it. “So you’ll come?”

“I’ll come.”

“Harry’ll be pleased. He keeps threatening to leave, says he wants to see us all as much as he can before he goes.”

Carwood sat up. “If I’m going to go, I need to finish this report.” He slid off the bed, berating himself for his cowardliness. Any talk of the future, no matter how casual, and he clammed up. He may as well be putting his hands over his ears, humming to block out the conversation. 

“Alright,” he heard Ron say. 

Carwood concentrated on his desk, on the smooth wood if not the report itself, nearly two-thirds typed. Before Ron left, he squeezed Carwood’s shoulder, and he felt the warmth through the fabric, all the way to his skin and muscle.

****

Colonel Sink commandeered a large house set against the lake that was painted an assortment of soft purples and blues. Its shutters were made of scalloped wood, painted bright white. It reminded Carwood of a wedding cake before it was cut, enormous and pristine despite the army taking up residence. By nightfall, nearly everyone in the 101st had squeezed onto the property - some inside, the windows and doors thrown open to tempt the evening air, others sprawled on the grass, the steps to the lake, the shore. The lake looked black during the night, except for the moon’s silvery reflection. 

Carwood sat on the wide back porch with Martin and Randleman and Foley, the latter of whom was trying to get the attention of a young woman serving beers at a makeshift bar in the corner, as well as some platoon leader from Dog Company Ron knew. Ron had been with them earlier, but before long Lewis had swung by their table and tugged him up by the collar, like one might do to a puppy. 

“Come on,” he’d said impatiently. “Play a drinking game with me.”

“Five bucks says he’ll throw up in the lake,” Ron had said, but he’d let himself be led away. 

Carwood remembered the first thing Lewis said to him about Ron. When they were all packing up to go on the road again after the night in Rachamps, he had come over with Dick to congratulate him on the promotion. 

“So Speirs told you, then?” Dick said. 

“Yes, sir.”

“Good for you, Lip,” Lewis said from Carwood’s other side. He nudged Carwood’s shoulder and added, “Speirs was very adamant you get the commission, you know.”

“He was,” Dick said. “Went around talking to everyone about you, then came to me and made his case. Not that I needed much convincing.”

Carwood bit the inside of his lip then, thought about what Ron had said in the church. Ron had been very earnest and serious, intense in a way Carwood had just started to realize was how he always acted. Carwood didn’t like being the center of attention, and even though it had been just the two of them talking, he’d felt like he’d been looking into the sun. Ron wasn’t at all how he expected him to be, warm where he’d thought he would encounter something ice cold. 

Ron had gone to headquarters to deliver his report right after, and Carwood had expected him to stay there for the night. But he’d come back and paced among the men, squatting to chat with the few still awake. Carwood’s esteem for him had risen substantially once he saw that; the men had been anxious, unused to sleeping indoors, and he’d helped convince them to rest. 

“Just doing my duty, sirs.” 

“But he’s right. You’ve looked out for Easy since day one. I should have thanked you a lot earlier.”

Carwood shook his head. “Thank you for recommending me for the commission, but I would have done it regardless.”

“Speirs is something else, isn’t he?” Lewis said. “I feel like he ought to be running around in plated armor, a sword on his hip.” This had mostly been directed at Carwood. Carwood had gotten the feeling Lewis had already tried that line out on Dick, it had a polished sort of sound to it.

It sounded just about right, though. Carwood could see Ron as a knight, saving princesses from witches and ogres, slaying dragons. In silver armor instead of army fatigues, his Tommy gun replaced with a longsword. Different stories, though. Did you hear about Sir Speirs, the knight who slain a whole group of bandits from the enemy kingdom intent on killing the king? 

Carwood got up without saying anything to his tablemates, all of whom were engrossed in some conversation he missed the beginning of. Foley, meanwhile, managed to coax the girl over. She blushed prettily as he complimented her English. 

He didn’t need another drink; he planned to nurse the same beer as long as he could. He wound his way through the house to the steps by the lake. He sidestepped a group of men playing poker and a second challenging one another to sprints. By the lake itself, he thought he saw Lewis, but before he could take a step closer, someone grabbed his elbow and spun him around.

Ron’s face and shirt were covered in blood. His upper cheek shone with the first hints of a bruise. “What the hell happened to you?” Carwood demanded. 

Ron smiled; his teeth were pink. “Harry and I had a brawl.”

“Ron, you didn’t.”

“We did,” Ron said, sounding deeply satisfied. He leaned in close to Carwood. His breath smelled like liquor. “I’ve been promising Harry we’d have one for weeks. Sink cut us short, though.”

Carwood must have made a face, because Ron laughed. “It’s alright, he just chewed us out. I’ve been chewed out before, I don’t mind it.”

Before Carwood could respond, he said, “The fireworks are starting,” and dragged Carwood away from the crowded shoreline into a wooded area. Ron sat close, thigh pressing into his.

Someone called loudly for his friend. A private stumbled by with a girl, both of them giggling. Carwood turned to Ron, intending to ask him why the hell they came all the way over here when surely more than a few were looking for them, but then Ron covered Carwood’s hand, palm down on the ground, with his own. 

Carwood looked down to hide his smile. He felt like they were a couple at the movies, the screen still dark, waiting not only for the picture but for one of them to make a move. Except they did that already, didn’t they? Over a month ago now, in Ron’s chalet. They had been smoking and playing an uninspired game of cribbage when Ron threw down his cards and hastily stubbed out his cigarette. He had leaned forward, looking at Carwood for several of the longest seconds of Carwood’s life. Just when Carwood had realized what Ron wanted to do, and wondered, feeling hot all over, if it would happen, Ron leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. 

When they had broken apart, Ron swallowed hard and said, “I meant to ask first.” But there had been relief in his tone, in the way he smiled when Carwood moved to sit next to him and their lips met again. Carwood had felt it too. He hadn’t read Ron wrong. Whatever had been swelling between them had burst, and now they were doused in it. 

He hadn’t gone back to his rooms that night until it was closer to morning. Ron had sent him off with a tender open-mouthed kiss against the door, body pressed up tight against his, hands cradling his jaw. “Meet me for breakfast,” Ron had said, and Carwood had. 

“You sure you’re alright?” Carwood asked, interlocking their fingers with a small squeeze. 

“I feel fine.”

He spit into his palm and rubbed at the blood on Ron’s face. Even in the dark, he could tell he wasn’t doing much but smearing it over his cheek. “Here,” he said, shoving Ron his beer, “wash out your mouth.”

Ron did as he asked, then downed the rest of the beer. He looked at Carwood with a serious expression on his face. “It was friendly. The fight. Harry begged me and we did it for the audience. It was just for fun.”

Before Carwood could say anything, the first firework exploded over their heads with a teeth-rattling boom. It glowed red and orange in the sky before falling towards the lake. 

For a long moment, Carwood was caught up watching it. Then he noticed Ron’s gaze and flushed. “This is nice,” he said, unsure. 

“Yes, it is,” Ron said. 

Another firework, this one green, streaked across the sky. It was followed by a quick succession of blindingly white sparklers that crisscrossed each other. Carwood smiled at the whining they made every time they twisted in the air. A few seconds later, huge booms had him full-on grinning. But then the next moment he remembered Bastogne, and sobered up. Ron, as if understanding this thought, shifted closer. 

Carwood hadn’t heard a sound like that in months. There were no gunshots or bomb blasts in Zell Am See aside from rifle practice and the lone altercation. 

He snuck a look at Ron. The alcohol softened his face in a way Carwood remembered from the Eagle’s Nest. The blood should have made him seem dangerous, but it didn’t, especially in the multicolored light from the fireworks. He was itching to leave Austria and get on their way to the Pacific, but now he didn’t look it. If they were alone, Carwood would have kissed him. Put a hand in his hair, pushed it back from his forehead. 

In the lull between the next set of fireworks, Ron said, “Will you come back with me later?”

“Yes,” Carwood promised. 

****

Carwood shut the door to his billet and stared down at the letter in his hands. Margaret had written the return address in that dark blue ink she favored. It felt thick, four or five pages long, as if to make up for the prolonged period of silence. 

Margaret Lipton, she wrote in the corner above their address. Before they married, her name had been Margaret Reilly. The last letter he had gotten from her had been short, only five lines, mostly pleasantries. Uncharacteristic, because the Margaret he knew talked enough for the both of them. Her previous letters had been full of the tiniest of details about home - her voice and piano students, the boarders, some of whom Carwood hadn’t even met, life in Huntington. Carwood’s family, and how Margaret fit in with them. The last letter didn’t say much at all, just that everyone was alive and well and that she read about the mess in Bastogne in the papers. He had gotten it three months ago, and although he’d replied, there hadn’t been anything since. 

He remembered her dark hair, always curled tightly from rollers she wore to bed, her wide smile, the birthmark on her lower back. He remembered the way she spoke his name. Why had they gotten married? They had dated in high school; they went to school dances together. It made sense, that’s what everyone agreed. 

Carwood ripped the envelope open, but didn’t unfold the letter.

Around the same time he had gotten that other letter from her, he’d interrupted Ron in the middle of his own letter writing. Ron had been straddling his desk chair backwards, staring down hard at an empty piece of paper, when Carwood opened the tent flap. He had been intending to ask Ron about tomorrow’s training exercises - they were finally in reserve - but the words had left him once Ron looked up at him and said, “Did you know I have a son?”

Ron didn’t wear his wedding ring - not now, in Austria, and certainly not then, in Mourmelon, either - but Carwood had heard from Lewis that he had an English wife. This hadn’t been the first time Ron confided in him - somewhere along the line, their conversations became personal whenever they got moments alone - but that was personal, even for Ron. 

“Congratulations,” Carwood said. He didn't know what to think; Ron didn’t seem very happy. 

“It was an accident,” Ron said. Then he shrugged and added, with that characteristic crassness Carwood knew he possessed, but still never expected, “I didn’t have much to do with it. All I did was stick it in, she handled the rest.”

He leaned forward, almost tipping the chair. His voice was flat as he continued, “So I gave her my name. She’s a nice girl, I didn’t want anyone to shame her.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, sir,” Carwood said, turning to leave. 

“If I could stop writing to her, I would.”

“Sir, you did the right thing, marrying her.”

Ron shook his head. “You’re married, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you miss your wife?”

Thinking about what he had said to Ron still made Carwood’s stomach twist up. He had taken vows. It might have been a small wedding, a rushed one on a weekend pass, but he took vows with Margaret. 

“No,” he said.

Ron’s head snapped up. His hair was falling into his eyes. He swept it back carelessly. “No?”

Carwood shrugged, looking off to the corner of the tent, where a small pile of silver sat, half-polished.

“Why not?” Ron asked.

“I’m not sure. It just seems harder to think of home now.”

Ron didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, “My son was born in January. His name is William.” 

He had smiled a little as he said it, like he didn’t even realize he was doing it, and Carwood had thought about that smile often in the days that followed. 

Ron still wrote to his wife regularly. It seemed that somewhere along the line, they’d fallen into a comfortable correspondence where Elise shared news about William - and even a photograph once, Ron had shown it to him proudly - and Ron replied with silver. 

Carwood wondered, as he opened Margaret’s letter, if their relationship would be better if he had a child with her. 

_Dear Carwood_ , the letter read, _I didn’t want to tell you like this_. 

Carwood sat down on his bed. Margaret had a tendency to repeat things, to speak circuitously. The letter only said one thing, but a dozen different ways. She wanted to explore how things might go with someone else, she wrote, and she wanted to tell him in person, but she simply couldn’t wait any longer. There was no telling when Carwood would even be home, if the news about the Pacific meant anything. And it wasn’t like Carwood was writing.

When he got to the end, he folded the letter back up carefully and put it in its envelope. 

The night before, when he and Ron had finished and were in Ron’s bed, Ron, still tipsy, fell asleep quickly. He had thrown an arm over Carwood’s chest and pressed up against him. Carwood had listened to his heavy breathing for several minutes before kissing his head and slipping out from underneath him. 

On the way back to his rooms, the guilt he shoved aside whenever he was with Ron had come to the forefront of his mind. He had felt sick and stopped for a moment. Two men, their arms slung around each other, singing drunkenly, had shoved past him. He’d stood there for several long minutes, looking at the black lake, before forcing himself to go and get some sleep. 

He looked down at the ring on his finger. It would be suspicious if he took if off. Everyone would notice, and someone - Harry, or George - would ask about it. Ron would certainly ask about it. Carwood sometimes felt like a deer and Ron a wildcat, with the way Ron’s sharp eyes looked him over. 

Ron had kissed him tenderly last night. He’d curled his fingers around Carwood’s wrist, coaxed him into his lap, and simply stared at him for several seconds before kissing him on the mouth. 

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Carwood had asked. He’d tasted a hint of Ron’s blood along with the liquor. Ron had only made a small noise and tugged him closer. 

Carwood took off the ring. He rubbed at the simple gold band, dull now from the wear and tear of war. Margaret wanted a divorce. She said it so plainly. Divorce. 

He put the ring back on, twisting it around on his finger.

****

“Carwood!” Harry shouted. “Be a good man and come on over!”

Harry looked terrible. Carwood believed the fight was even - Ron had a nasty bruise on his side from Harry’s boot - but Ron had punched him twice in the face, and the bruises had mottled purple overnight. 

“Good to see he didn’t knock out those teeth, sir,” Carwood said. He took a seat across from Harry. Harry offered him his cigarette, which he took gratefully. 

“Oh, Kitty would be up the wall. And stop with the ‘sir,’” Harry said. “Jesus, Lip, come on. If you’ve stopped calling Ron ‘sir,’ you can stop with me.” He took a gulp of coffee, clutching at his head. “Goddamn.”

“Bad night?”

“Puked everywhere,” he said, “and my mouth fucking hurts. Ron knows how to throw a punch. I’ll give him that much.”

Carwood shrugged sympathetically. Harry stole back his cigarette, shaking his head. “This always happens when I mix drinks. I should’ve just stuck to the one, like Nix.”

“Maybe next time don’t go around asking people to kick your ass.”

Harry laughed. “Is that what he told you? What a bastard. If we’d been at it a second longer, I would’ve had him. Besides, he was the one who said yes to it, he didn’t have to.”

“I’ve never known Ron to back down from a challenge.” Carwood made to stand up, but Harry reached over the table and tugged him down. “I’ve got sandwiches coming. Stay for lunch. Nix’ll be here any minute.”

Lewis arrived a moment later, looking chipper despite his pinkish eyes. “Gentlemen,” he said, unable to keep the grin off of his face when he caught sight of Harry, “how are we today?”

Harry just gave him the finger and took another sip of coffee. 

Lewis lit a cigarette. “Have either of you seen Ron?”

“Not since last night,” Harry said. “Why?”

Carwood just shook his head. 

“Dick’s looking for him, says he wants to talk about setting up a hiking expedition for the boys.”

“That might be nice,” Carwood said. “You can tell they’re getting restless, even with the drills and exercises.”

“You’d think they’d appreciate the vacation,” Lewis said. “Or, you know, not being shot at.”

“Paradise is boring,” Harry said. Lewis looked over at Carwood, his eyebrows raised, likely about to snark about Harry’s off-brand philosophizing, but then Harry raised his hand and said, “Look, there’s our food.”

When they were situated, cigarettes stubbed out in a saucer, with fresh coffee and sandwiches made on the dark chewy bread that seemed to be favored here - Lewis took a bite into his and made a face, but kept eating anyway - Carwood said, “At least some of them have been able to go home.”

“Not too many, unfortunately,” Lewis said. 

“It feels cruel that most of the officers could, if they wanted to, but not their men. Don’t they need leaders?” 

Ron strolled up, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, pinching a cigarette between his forefinger and thumb. The bruises on his face had darkened overnight, and there was a cut on the bridge of his nose Carwood swore wasn’t there before. “Officers are cheap,” he said. “If you want to win a war you need bodies.” 

He sat down next to Harry and reached across the table to steal half of Carwood’s sandwich. “Wasn’t expecting to see you up and walking today,” he told Harry. 

“Ron,” Carwood said. 

“What?” Ron said around a mouthful. “You can always order another one.”

“About the other thing.”

He shrugged. “It’s true. You need someone to gut the enemy personally. Boots on the ground and all that.”

“It just sounds so depressing when you put it that way.”

“God forbid war was anything else,” Harry put in. “Nix says Dick was looking for you, Mr. Sun Tzu.”

“Right,” Ron said. “Anyone want to come hiking?”

****

Carwood tilted his head back, letting the shower water run over his chest. He shook out his shoulders. Weeks of hot water and he still wasn’t used to it, wasn’t used to showing indoors, and in private. 

Ron had gathered a hiking group after lunch. Along with Dick, they had gone off the path and into the mountains. It had been a pleasant change of pace from other afternoon activities, mostly swimming and sports, and when they got back to their camp, the boys had seemed more relaxed. Dick, Lewis, and Ron had been called away to a meeting, and Harry and Carwood had hung around with some of the boys until it got dark, fireflies winking in the air. 

He’d taken his wedding ring off before he got in the shower so it wouldn’t get lost down the drain, and while he couldn’t see it, he knew it was there on the countertop, next to his watch and towel. 

All afternoon, between the men calling for his attention and Ron circling back from the front of the group periodically to talk to him, he’d barely thought of the letter. But now he couldn’t get his mind off it. He ought to reply to her. Should he tell her to send the papers now? Or maybe the war would end before they could process the paperwork, so it would be better to leave it. 

Carwood scrubbed at his face, then turned off the water. He stood in the bathroom for a long time, looking at his reflection in the foggy mirror, before he put on the ring.

He had been dressed barely five minutes when he heard a knock on the door. He opened it, expecting Ron or else George, but a runner he’d never seen before was there instead. 

“Sir,” the boy - and he truly was a boy, his cheeks baby-smooth, all narrow shoulders and bony limbs - said, “Captain Speirs is looking for you, sir.”

“Where is he?”

“Down at the company CP, sir.”

Carwood found Ron in the main room, sitting on the long conference table, eating an apple. He had showered and shaved; Carwood saw that his hair was still wet. 

“Winters wanted a transfer,” Ron said. “Back around the D-Day anniversary.” 

“What?” 

Ron slid off the table. “A transfer. To the front.” 

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Says he wanted to get it over with.”

“What about the men?”

“He hasn’t commanded them personally in a long while now. It would have been fine if he went.”

“Nixon?”

“Would’ve gone with them. You know they’re attached at the hip anyway.”

“I didn’t know about that.” But it did sound like something Dick would do. Carwood leaned up against a filing cabinet, gesturing around the room, to the maps on the walls, the American flag and 101st Division banner side by side behind the head of the table. Everyone still got a kick out of the fact it was an actual office, instead of just a room in whatever house had the most intact furniture. “Why’d you ask me to come here? Why not your rooms?”

Ron looked at him impassively. Then he threw his half-eaten apple into the wastebasket, like one would a basketball, and crossed his arms over his chest. “What would you say if I went?”

Carwood swallowed hard. “You put in the paperwork?”

“Not yet.”

“Easy needs you.”

“Easy’s mostly going to be replacements soon enough.”

“It’s still your company.”

Ron inspected his scabbed knuckles. “You know,” he said, “I miss being a platoon leader. If they let me have my pick of positions, I would go back to being a platoon leader.”

Carwood’s throat felt thick. Ron had been talking about the Pacific ever since they saw that newsreel about Okinawa. At first, it had seemed likely that their stay in Austria would be merely a short respite before they were shipped out again, but now Carwood had to admit he agreed with Harry that the war would end before Easy left Europe. But he couldn’t tell Ron that; Ron kept asking around for news about the front over there, and when he relayed it all to Carwood, he spoke a little quickly, animated in a way Carwood rarely saw and felt fondness for despite the reason behind it.

“Ron,” he said. “Think about it some more.”

“Army bureaucracy moves so slow, they probably won’t even look at it until the war’s through,” Ron said. He took a step closer to Carwood, frowning slightly. “I picked here because I needed to tell you in private. And every time we’re truly alone, I just want-”

“Ron,” Carwood said warningly. Ron shut his mouth, but he took another small step in Carwood’s direction. 

Carwood didn’t move. He wanted to take one of Ron’s hands in his, see if it was sticky from the apple. The bruise on Ron’s cheek had swelled, the skin shiny, despite the ice Carwood found for it after the fireworks. It probably it hurt, not that Ron would ever complain. 

“What are you doing tonight?” Ron asked. 

Carwood indulged the change of subject even though he couldn’t take his mind off of the thought of Ron with another company, cutting his way through jungle, or else dropping on Tokyo. Ron thrived under pressure; he’d probably relish in long nights spent holding the line as the enemy threw body after body at their defenses. That was what they did. Carwood saw the newsreels. When the battles were finished the bodies were laid so thick you couldn’t see the ground.

“Paperwork,” he said. 

“Lucky us,” Ron said. “Mind if we work together?” He fished two cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. 

“Sir, let me,” Carwood said, plucking them out of Ron’s hand before Ron could find his lighter. He ruined it a little by letting his mouth twitch up in a grin. He couldn’t help it, even if Ron seemed bent on putting the world between them. 

Ron stuck the cigarette in his mouth and smirked around it. “Quit fucking with me, Lieutenant.” 

****

The plan, of course, had always been to do his duty to his country, however long that took, and then go back to school if he could afford it. Carwood didn’t mind the military - he was proud of his service, and of his men’s too - but he never imagined a future where it was all he knew professionally. He still didn’t. 

He had the points to go home if he wanted, but even before the letter, that hadn’t truly been an option. Dick had told them that they needed to decide what to do, but for Carwood it wasn’t a decision at all. Not while his men were still suited up to go to war, and not while Ron commanded them. Ron hadn’t spoken to him about it yet, but Carwood thought he already knew Ron’s answer to what he wanted to do postwar, any dislike of bureaucracy notwithstanding. 

The rest of the week and most of the next passed in a blur. The pleasant summer air made training bearable. Carwood managed to send off a few more of Easy’s men. He didn’t speak to Dick or Lewis about the transfer that wasn’t, but he mentioned it to Harry, who nodded vigorously and said, “Those fuckers wanted to abandon us.” Carwood chose not to mention to Harry that he threatened nearly every day to hang up his wings and go back to Kitty. 

He spent most evenings with Ron. Ron seemed to understand that he hit a nerve and didn’t bring up any talk of the future, although he sometimes shared news of the war in the Pacific. They played cards, took walks around the lake, worked on reports together. When they could, they went to bed, and Carwood liked that best of all. Ron smiled the whole time, like he won the lottery and couldn’t quite believe it yet. Sometimes it was wide and Carwood could see his teeth, which were stained with tobacco in a way that still managed to be charming, and other times it wasn’t there unless Carwood was looking for it. 

One such night ended with Ron swallowing Carwood’s come and turning his head to kiss the thicket of scars on Carwood’s upper thigh. Carwood twitched. The skin there was still sensitive, so mangled that Carwood didn’t like to look at, although Ron loved to trace it with his tongue. Their uniforms were only half off; Ron had kicked the door shut and grabbed at Carwood with a kind of intensity that Carwood hadn’t seen outside of situations including Ron, a gun, and a crystal clear objective. 

He put his hand in Ron’s sweaty hair. “Come here,” he said, but Ron shook his head. 

“No need,” he said. He sat up, and Carwood saw a dark patch on his unbuttoned pants. 

Carwood felt a white-hot spike of heat go through him. “Come here anyway.” 

Ron brushed their lips together. The first time they did this, Carwood had found it odd to taste himself, but now he didn’t mind it. Still, it felt dirty enough that he squirmed, curling his toes, when Ron deepened the kiss.

After a moment he rolled them over and shoved Ron’s pants and skivvies down his legs. Ron, who went along with this willingly, said, “What are you doing?”

“Don’t want you to get uncomfortable when it dries,” Carwood said.

He stood, tugging his own pants up, and went into the bathroom to wash them out. When he returned, he saw that Ron was still on the bed, eyes closed, hands crossed behind his head. He looked silly in just his shirt. Carwood took in his strong bare legs, dusted with dark hair, and how that same dark hair trailed down his navel to his cock. He sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed at Ron’s feet. Kissed the sole of the left one. Ron jerked, opening his eyes. 

Carwood kissed his right sole, then the tops of his feet. He ran his hands up Ron’s legs and settled on his side next to him, then kissed his bellybutton. 

Ron breathed in sharply through his nose. “Carwood,” he said. “What…?” 

“I came in and saw you,” Carwood said. He kissed Ron’s hipbone. “I wanted to touch you.”

“Jesus,” Ron muttered. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Carwood just hummed, kissing a little lower. 

“If you want me to go again right now, you’ll be disappointed.” Ron coaxed Carwood up, so that they lay side by side. He pulled the sheet up around them. 

“Someone could knock,” Carwood said. “It’s not that late.”

“They could,” Ron agreed. 

“You’d have to scramble into the bathroom.” He looked at Ron. “Do you worry about it?”

“About what?”

“Getting caught.”

“We’re discreet.”

“But that’s not foolproof.”

Ron tightened his hold on Carwood momentarily. “It’s worth the risk.”

Carwood couldn’t breathe for a moment. He squeezed Ron back, wanting to tell him about the letter. How would he start that sentence? Perhaps it would be best just to show it to him, let him read all the way to the end. But that meant asking about what would happen after this war was through, and he wasn’t ready to face that question. 

He allowed himself a moment of indulgence, imagined that this room wasn’t in a hotel in Austria, but rather in a house somewhere back in the States. A house that they lived in together, where they didn’t have to worry if someone would walk in and ruin it all. 

Then Ron said, “I asked Sink if we’re moving out anytime soon.”

Carwood tensed. Ron must have felt it, because he rubbed Carwood’s back. “He said he didn’t know anything,” he said. “Not yet. Maybe by the end of the month.”

“I suppose that’s a good thing,” Carwood ventured. He waited for Ron to say more, maybe mention his transfer paperwork, but he didn’t.

“It’ll be unlike anything we’ve known before,” Ron said instead. “Europe looks like home, more or less. The environment was tough, but at least we were used to it. Nothing at all like those islands out in the ocean. They may as well be sending us to fight on Mars.”

His tone didn’t match the words coming out of his mouth; it was pitched in that way Carwood knew equaled eagerness. 

“You’re excited, then.”

“I know that’s not what you’re supposed to say,” Ron said. “But it’s killing me to be here while there’s action over there.”

What are you going to do when the Japanese surrender? Carwood wanted to ask. Instead he said, “I’m sure you’ll excel there too.”

“Carwood,” Ron said, “I know I asked this already.”

“Asked me what?”

Ron hesitated. “You have the points to go home, don’t you?”

“I’m not going home right now,” Carwood said. He kissed Ron’s shoulder. “If they need me in the Pacific, I’ll go to the Pacific.”

He felt Ron’s lips brush his temple. Would they even be together in the Pacific? He hadn’t gotten his new assignment yet, but he suspected the army would remember soon enough. And even if they were, it couldn’t be like this, not if they were on the line. 

“Good,” Ron said. 

Carwood squeezed his eyes shut. He felt like he should say something more, explain somehow the emotion welling up in him, but he couldn’t. 

****

Carwood woke up in the middle of the night to someone knocking hard on his door, over and over. “Lip!” 

He recognized George’s voice and shot out of bed, stumbling over to the door in the dark. 

“Jesus, Lip, I thought you weren’t here. This was mostly just to check where you weren’t,” George said when Carwood opened the door, tucking in his shirt at the same time. 

Light streamed in from the hallway, making Carwood squint. “What time is it?”

“About 0300 hours.”

“Why are you-”

“So you really haven’t heard yet?”

“Heard what, George?” Carwood said tersely. 

“Grant’s been shot.”

“What?” Carwood sagged against the doorframe, dragging a hand down his face. Janovec, and now Grant. Ron was fond of Grant. Everyone was, but Ron in particular. “How?”

“I thought someone would’ve told you by now. Speirs is out of his fucking mind. Didn’t shoot the guy, but still. I’ve never seen him this mad.”

“What happened?” 

“Walk with me,” George said, leading the way down the hallway. “Grant was out on patrol when he and the guys he was with stopped some drunk guy who’d shot two German officers.”

“Christ,” Carwood said. 

“He got out of the jeep, tried to talk to the guy, but before he could get too close, the guy shot him in the head.”

“So he’s dead,” Carwood said as they rushed down the stairs, two at a time. 

“No. Speirs and Doc took him to a Kraut surgeon who managed to operate in time. Apparently he’s gonna make it.”

Carwood breathed out heavily. “And you got him?”

“We caught him, got him a bit roughed up. I was playing cards with Tab outside - Tab was the one who found him - when Speirs came in. We all thought for sure he was gonna shoot him, but he didn’t.”

Carwood blinked. “Why the hell didn’t anyone wake me up?”

“Sorry,” George said apologetically. “We thought you already knew.”

“Where’s the Captain?” 

“I think he’s talking to Sink.”

“Thanks, George.” Carwood pushed the lobby doors open, about to run down the road to the Battalion HQ, when George called to him.

“You might want to give him some time to cool down. He was very, you know, shouty.” 

****

Carwood waited nearly forty minutes for Ron to emerge from Sink’s office. He felt the late hour the whole time; he was awake, but it felt strange to be in this room, with its fancy furniture and cheerful wallpaper, while the clock on the wall ticked towards four in the morning. Ron, rubbing at his eyes, nearly strode past, but then he saw Carwood and paused. 

He looked tired. He carried his cap in his hands, and his hair was mussed. This had been the rare night Carwood didn’t see him; Ron ate dinner with some of his old friends from Dog. 

Carwood stood without saying anything, and the two of them hurried shoulder to shoulder into the street. Ron walked stiffly, no doubt still tense, but by the time they reached his billet, he managed to take a deep breath and let it all out with a sigh. He unlocked the door and guided Carwood in. Carwood turned on one of the lights and watched as Ron locked the door carefully. Then he leaned against it, squeezing his eyes shut. 

Carwood just stood there looking at the way Ron was working his jaw. He didn’t know the right move to make, only that he wanted to be there for him. Thank God Grant didn’t die; Carwood knew Ron would be worse if he’d died. 

“I’m going to make us drinks,” Ron said eventually. He unbuttoned his jacket on his way to the kitchen and threw it on the floor. Carwood heard two hard thumps as Ron shucked off his shoes. Then he walked back with two little rose-colored tumblers filled, Carwood knew, with brandy. Lewis knew Ron’s favorite - some French cognac that came in a crystal bottle shaped like a teardrop - and had packed up a whole case for him at the Eagle’s Nest. 

Carwood sat in one of the armchairs, letting the brandy sweat on the side table next to him, as Ron paced and sipped at his drink. When he finished, it seemed like some more of the anger had gone out of him; his walk wasn’t as aggressive. He picked up Carwood’s untouched glass and sat down across from him. 

“So you heard,” he said flatly. 

“Luz filled me in.”

“Sink told me I should’ve shot him.”

“Ron,” Carwood started, but Ron interrupted. 

“I don’t know why the hell I didn’t. Sink told me that earlier tonight he roughed up two Privates in I Company and raped one of the Austrian women.” He tilted his head back, eyes shut. “All before he fucking - before he shot Grant. And he was drunk. In public. What a fucking disgrace.”

Carwood didn’t say anything. 

“I know that everyone thinks I like killing people. But I don’t. I’ve never lost sleep over it, but it’s not like I seek it out. I like being in battle. I like completing our objective. I like this life, but not because I get to shoot things. Well,” Ron amended, considering, “maybe a little because I get to shoot things. But not people. I don't-"

He broke off, looking at Carwood so intently Carwood shivered. "I wanted to kill him. Grant didn’t deserve this. He took away Grant’s life, because even though he’s going to live, it won’t be the same.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t,” Carwood said. “Maybe you weren’t sure that was really him.”

“I don’t know,” Ron said. “I trust Talbert.” He gulped down the drink in one go before leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Sink said I should’ve shot him. The boys couldn’t believe I didn’t. I think some of them were waiting to see it happen. What do you think?”

Ron was fond of Grant, but Carwood was fond of everyone. Any one of their boys could’ve been shot at tonight, and it wasn’t fair that they still had to worry about that when they were far from the front lines. Carwood felt anger rise up in him. They’d all killed men. They’d all done things they would never do outside of the war. But Grant didn’t die during a battle. He died during guard duty, from friendly fire. 

“You should’ve shot him,” Carwood said. 

Ron nodded. He bit his lip. 

“But it’s okay that you didn’t.” Carwood wanted to hold Ron and listen to his heartbeat, and for Ron to hear his in return. “There’s been enough bloodshed in this war already.”

“He doesn’t deserve to wear this uniform,” Ron said, gesturing between the two of them. “He doesn’t deserve his fucking wings.”

“I’m sure they’ll discharge him dishonorably.”

Ron stood up abruptly. 

“What are you doing?” Carwood asked. 

Ron just raised his glass and walked into the next room. When he came back, he leaned against Carwood’s chair and said, “I withdrew my transfer paperwork.”

Carwood looked up at him. “Good,” he said.

Ron grimaced into his glass. “I was going to cancel it anyway, after I talked to you. But now the thing with Grant made it clear I can’t leave Easy.”

Carwood smiled. “Ron.”

Ron ducked his head down. “It would be irresponsible of me to leave such a valuable resource to the military in the hands of the wrong - well, someone else, someone who doesn’t know them as well.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Carwood said, but his smile grew wider. He ruined it with a yawn that he just barely managed to cover with his elbow. 

“Here,” Ron said, holding out a hand to help him up. “You ought to go to bed.”

“It’s nearly time to wake up.”

“Just for a few hours. I already cancelled the morning drills.” 

Before Carwood went back to his own rooms, Ron stepped close. He let himself be held like Carwood wanted, boneless with the wall at his back. Then he slumped forward, ear pressed against Carwood’s chest. 

There wasn’t really anything more to say, so Carwood didn’t even try. 

He thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep so near to dawn, but as soon as he turned down the bed sheets, he had to blink to keep his eyes open. He dreamt of tropical islands with white sand and broken palm trees littering the shoreline. He kept hearing Ron’s voice shouting orders somewhere in front of him, but no matter how fast he ran, he never managed to catch up with Easy.

****

“You know, a lot of men who do this,” Ron said, “they tend to pretend none of it happened and then go home to play house with their wives.” He folded up the letter and handed it to Carwood. 

They were sitting at the end of a pier that jutted out into the lake’s shallows. It was made of smooth, well cared for wood, nothing like the flaky clapboard at the fishing spot around the corner from Carwood’s house. The sunlight kept sneaking off behind the clouds. Ron’s face was half in shadow. It made him look peculiar, one eye lit up, the other hard to read. 

Carwood looked out over the lake. He and Margaret had never really lived as husband and wife. The assumption was that there’d be time for that later. Carwood would get through school and find a better paying job so Margaret could take on less students and focus on raising their children. As far as he knew, Ron had never lived with his wife either. 

Ron’s face didn’t betray anything, but despite the fact they weren’t touching, Carwood felt how tense he was. 

“I thought you’d be happy about this,” Carwood ventured. He saw immediately this was the wrong tack to take; Ron’s mouth tightened. He shifted so they weren’t so close to each other.

“That’s what I like to do in my spare time, break up marriages. You know, when I’m not shooting soldiers.”

“You didn’t break anything up.” Carwood ran his finger along the edge of the letter. “I’m not the blameless one here. I’ve been cheating on her.”

He’d never said it aloud before. It sounded strange to say it so plainly. When he used to think about it, forced himself to think clearly about what he was doing, even though Ron made it so easy to forget his vows, his stomach twisted up. He’d nearly been sick the first time, not because his feelings for Ron disgusted him, but because it went against everything he’d been taught. He cheated on her, and her cheating too didn’t make it any less irresponsible.

“You’re still wearing it. The ring.” 

Carwood looked down at his left hand. The ring was still dull and banged up, and now it was all he noticed when he looked at it. Months ago he thought he’d replace it when he got back, keep the original next to his dog tags for safekeeping. A tangible memory of the war. “I didn’t want to invite questions.”

“How long have you known?”

“About two weeks now.”

“Two weeks?” Ron stood, wiping his hands on his pants violently. “Christ, Carwood.” 

Carwood scrambled to his feet. “What’s the matter?”

Ron just shook his head and shoved past him. The clouds shifted, pouring out bucketfuls of sunlight. Carwood shaded his eyes as he looked at Ron stride down the pier, shoulders set stiffly.

“Ron,” he called, but Ron didn’t turn back.

That was the first time Ron had ever walked away from him in the middle of a conversation. Carwood stood there dumbly until he couldn’t see Ron anymore. 

Then he sat back down, exhaling hard. “Fuck,” he swore. He was clutching at the letter so tightly it’d started to tear, so he finished the job and threw the pieces into the lake. 

He stayed out on the pier a long while after, until the clouds threatened any glimpses of sun and the air had grown chilly from a stiff breeze. He thought about Margaret’s pretty mouth and the way her dresses hugged the flare of her hips. The way she laughed; he’d always thought she had a pretty laugh. Then he thought about Ron. Everything about him was muscle, like a sculpture, one of the classic ones Carwood supposed he saw a lot of in college. He had a deep voice and smelled like a man and while his lips weren’t anything like Margaret’s, they were better to kiss. 

He understood more of Carwood than Margaret ever did, and Carwood supposed that ought to count for something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry's quip about Sun Tzu is likely an anachronism, but I indulged myself anyway. Apparently The Art of War was first published in English in 1910, but I don't know how widespread it was by 1945. Let's be real, though, Ron would read that book twice over if he could get his hands on it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of the kind comments and kudos on the first chapter! It's super motivational, I really appreciate it <3 I hope that you all enjoy the second one! It was a lot of fun to write. Again, thanks to [theonceandfuturecaptain](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theonceandfuturecaptain/works) for being wonderfully helpful and patient with me as this chapter came together.
> 
> I thought this would be a good place to mention that this story was inspired, in part, by [jouissant](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/works)'s wonderful winnix canonverse trilogy, [What things we have heard together](http://archiveofourown.org/series/410836). It's a beautiful fic, so if winnix interests you, you should definitely check it out :)

After they had taken Noville, Carwood had slumped against an old stone wall that had nearly been blown apart and closed his eyes. He had kept his hands on his gun and tried to will his heart rate down. 

He half-expected some straggling Nazis to come running out from behind the trees at the edge of the town. At the end of the battle, he had walked amongst everyone and saw they sustained no deaths, only minor casualties. Ron had led them through a miracle. They’d slept only one night with him as their commanding officer, yet everyone already breathed easier. None of them spoke to him directly - they kept asking Carwood if he would tell the Captain this and that - but despite the distance, their relief at having a leader again eased the tension in the company that had slithered in, cold and chokingly thick, since Dike’s appointment. 

He’d told Dick that morning how everyone felt. Dick had smiled and clapped him on the shoulder, confessing that Ron had been the first officer he he’d seen when he looked around during Foy for someone to relieve Dike, but he was happy it was all working out all right. Carwood wasn’t particularly religious, but that had felt like fate.  

He heard the sound of a lighter clicking to life and opened his eyes to see Ron walking towards him. “You smoke?” he asked around a cigarette. 

“Some, sir.”

Ron held out his pack. Carwood took one slim Lucky Strike. Ron settled on the wall next to him and held out his lighter. 

Carwood smiled, just a little. He didn’t expect Ron to shoot him, but the boys still made jokes about Ron’s supposed murderousness every chance they could get. 

“We’ll be heading out again tomorrow,” he said once Carwood was settled. “To Rachamps.” 

Carwood nodded. He suspected Easy wouldn’t get a break until they were knocking on Hitler’s door personally. “Sir.” 

“We need more ammunition.” 

“Don’t we always?”

Ron blew cigarette smoke out of the side of his mouth. “What are you doing all the way out here, anyway, Sergeant?”

Carwood took a drag, feeling his face flush. He knew he ought to have gone back to the CP sooner, or else walked around to check on the men. But he hadn’t felt like being around everyone. He wanted to think. He had nearly started to pray before Ron joined him. “Just looking for some peace and quiet, sir.”

“Well, you’ve got the quiet.” Ron looked out over the field in front of them. The grass was kicked up in places, smoke settling hazily in the air. Bodies dotted the far edge. “The peace will have to wait.”

They sat in silence, Carwood sneaking glances over at Ron when he thought it was safe. Ron sat with his legs splayed out in front of him, helmet in his lap. The cold breeze made his hair ruffle. When his cigarette burned down to a nub, he used it to light another before crushing it under his boot. Carwood couldn’t tell if he was high on the success of their mission or simply unaffected. Carwood, meanwhile, couldn’t get rid of the tension in his shoulders. He envied Ron’s nonchalance. 

“Remind me, where are you from?” Ron asked eventually. 

“West Virginia.”

“What city?”

“It’s called Huntington.”

“Do you miss it?”

“It was a good place to grow up,” Carwood said.

Carwood hadn’t thought about it much lately. Around Christmas, he had wondered what his Ma and brother were up to, how they decorated the tree and what records they played when they came back from Christmas Eve mass. He had wondered how cold it was there, if there was snow. He’d bet that even if they had three feet of snow, it couldn’t match the cold that settled down into his bones in Belgium. 

Ron nodded. “I’m from Boston.”

That was the first piece of personal information about Ron he’d heard from the man himself. He knew what the men said about Ron. It was impossible to sit around trading stories without someone bringing up his time in Dog Company, although those tales tended to make him out to be some sort of machine that didn’t exist prior to the war. Now, with Ron a member of Easy, the fear had coalesced into something nearer to awe, but the boys still regarded him as more a legend than a man.  

Carwood had never been to Boston. He pictured it as something akin to New York City, one of the truly important places in America, far from Huntington’s sprawl in the shadow of the Appalachians. “Do you miss it, sir?”

Ron, crossing his arms over his chest, looked over. “Sometimes. I miss going fishing with my father.” 

“Did you go often?”

“Often enough. We’d drive out to Carson Beach sometimes, spend the day there.”

It was more out of the natural curiosity Carwood had about other people’s fathers than anything that led him to ask, “What sort of man is your father like?”

Ron had looked over at him, clearly caught off guard. “A tough man,” he’d said, shrugging. “A Scot.” Ron had stood, putting on his helmet. “See you later, Sergeant. And good work today.”

Carwood had merely saluted him and watched as he’d walked away. 

Noville had been one of the first times they spoke to each other in private. It was easier, now, to think back to moments like that, rather than any of the intimacy that came after, because the argument at the lake had seemed to break whatever connection they’d had; Ron wasn’t speaking to him. Carwood had initially been bewildered, but as Ron’s moodiness became more pronounced, he grew irritated, and didn’t much want to talk to Ron either. Three days passed this way, Carwood kicking at his heartbreak, unable to stop thinking of Ron. He’d take those brief snatches of conversation on the road those first few weeks together over what had been growing between them if only so Ron would look at him again and smile. 

Harry noticed. “What happened with you and Sparky?” he asked after a very quiet dinner. “And here I was thinking he’d finally found a friend.”

Carwood, who was pushing his cabbage around his plate rather than eating it, just shrugged, and Harry didn’t press. 

It must have been enough of a confirmation, though, because he told Lewis, who in turn told Dick, and the three of them together looked at Carwood with such concern after another awkward meal that Carwood got up to find a quiet place to smoke. 

Outside, he remembered that he didn’t have a lighter, and just stood there dumbly with the unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He looked over at the sun, which was beginning to set over the mountaintops. Every clear day looked like a painting, with wide swathes of pinks and yellows cradling the sun as it dipped out of sight. There were a few streaky clouds in the sky this time, as delicate as bits of cottonwood. 

He normally smoked in Ron’s company; he hadn’t had any use for a lighter before. 

After Ron had left, he’d thought about going to find him, to force him to explain why the hell he’d walked away. But Ron had a viciously intractable edge to his personality, and Carwood didn’t want to push too far and pin Ron into a corner he’d resent. 

He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Ron had never mentioned what he wanted to do about his marriage. The more he thought on it, the more likely it seemed that the letter made Ron remember his own wife. He had a son to go home to after all of this. Carwood couldn’t blame Ron if he wanted his family more than him. It was the thing he ought to do. He only wished Ron hadn’t rejected him so unceremoniously. 

Carwood put the cigarette back in his pocket with a sigh. He’d turned to go back to his rooms when someone caught his sleeve. 

“Let me.” Ron stepped next to him, holding out his lighter. 

Carwood looked at him. There was an apologetic tilt to his shoulders, in the way he leaned in to light Carwood’s cigarette. He smelled like aftershave and gun oil. Carwood wrapped his fingers around Ron’s wrist before he could stop himself. 

Ron smiled. Just a hint, a fleeting wisp that made Carwood wonder how he ever managed the past few days without seeing it. 

“I have to ask you something,” Ron said.  

Carwood pulled him flat against the building. There was an awning over a side entrance, a respite from rain or snow before one entered the mudroom, large and shadowy enough to hide them from passerby. Ron had an inscrutable expression on his face. Carwood thought he might speak, but he didn’t say anything, just looked at Carwood, letting him hold his wrist loosely. 

Eventually Carwood filled the silence, like he sometimes did when being around Ron felt like keeping a statue company. 

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t quite sure yet what he was apologizing for. This was a step up from the previous few days, though, so he wanted to keep Ron’s attention as long as possible. 

Ron shook his head. He swiped his tongue across his upper lip. “I have to ask you a question,” he said again. 

“Go on, then.”

Ron reached out instead of saying anything. He pulled Carwood close and kissed his temple. Just once, with heartbreaking tenderness that made Carwood suddenly quite afraid Ron was about to tell him they couldn’t be together anymore.  

He swallowed hard. Ron had come to his senses. It had sunk in that he had a wife and child waiting for him. Or he realized it was too risky and wanted to stop it before they went any further. He simply didn’t want Carwood like that anymore and had been trying to find a way to tell him. 

But Ron was still holding onto him. “Carwood,” he began quietly, “about the letter, did you mean-” 

The door opened. 

They both went rigid. Then Ron dropped his hands from the lapels of Carwood’s shirt and stepped to the side. Carwood turned around, putting his hands behind his back. 

Dick and Lewis stood before them. Carwood would’ve laughed if he felt he could open up his mouth without vomiting, his gut suddenly pitching and rolling. Neither of them seemed very surprised, and somehow that made everything worse. 

He snuck a look at Ron, but his face wasn’t betraying anything. He forced himself to breathe out. What they were doing was exactly what it looked like. There was no point in making excuses. He didn’t think Dick would report them, but he could. He and Ron could be dishonorably discharged. The brass might not even bother with a court-martial, just throw them both out on their asses. That would hurt Ron more than anything the enemy could throw at him. 

He knew what they were doing was wrong. It was not what men did with one another. He knew this, yet had ignored it. He wanted to look at Ron again for some hint of what to do or say, but he didn’t dare. 

Finally Dick stepped forward. “Gentlemen,” he said.

“Sir,” Ron said. He sounded much calmer than he had the right to be. 

Lewis lunged forward and grabbed Ron’s arm. He pulled Ron away from Carwood, twisting so tightly it must have hurt, but Ron didn’t flinch. “You promised you would be careful.”

“Nix,” Ron started, but Lewis shook his head. 

“I don’t even want to hear it.” He threw a look at Carwood, and Carwood was surprised to see the depth of the annoyance in his eyes. “I thought I could trust Lip to keep you in line. What if we weren’t the ones who came out here? What would you’ve done then?”

“We are being careful,” Ron said. 

“You’re not exactly hard to figure out.” Lewis tugged until Ron conceded to take a few steps away with him. He immediately launched back into his scolding in a loud whisper. Carwood was surprised to see Ron drop his defiant gaze down to his boots, letting Lewis keep the grip on his arm. 

Dick looked over at them, then at Carwood, his eyebrows raised like he was expecting Carwood to explain himself. 

“Did they-” Carwood found himself asking Dick. That wasn’t how he meant to start the conversation, but there was a certain quality to the way Ron and Nix were leaning in together that made Carwood look twice. 

Dick just nodded. “Once, from what I understand. It wasn’t very good.”

“Oh.”

Dick was smiling, just a little. In exasperation, Carwood thought. “At first, I didn’t know how to react.”

“To Ron and Nix?”

“No. Just to Nix.” Dick shrugged. “I knew about… well, it’s one thing to know certain men exist, but another thing entirely to realize you might be one.”

Carwood understood the feeling. He watched as Dick snuck another look at Lewis, like he couldn’t help it. A moment of thought and it made sense, of course. They were a pair, had been as long as Carwood knew them. He supposed he ought to be surprised, but he couldn’t muster up anything but begrudging happiness that someone’s relationship seemed to be going steady, if not his. If he still had one at all.

“We worked it out, but we thought, when it started, that it might just be a product of the war. I’m sure you two know about that. But it went on, and now we don’t think it’s like that anymore. That’s what this is, isn’t it?”  

Yes, Carwood thought. At some point he crossed a line. He didn’t know where or how it happened, just that he was too far gone to find his way back again. He felt clammy, like he might sweat through his clothes despite the evening air. 

“I’m not sure,” he said. It stung to say it. “If he’ll have me.”

Dick nodded like he had expected that answer. “Then we’ll leave it alone. But Lew’s right, you need to be more careful.”

“It was my fault,” Carwood said, “just now. The position you found us in. I take responsibility for it. He just wanted to talk, I made it into more.”

He’d spent so long explaining situations to Dick as his CO that he couldn’t seem to help doing it again. Dick offered him a smile that was not quite a smile, more of an upward slant of his mouth, and somehow that more than anything solidified Carwood’s realization that Dick was in love, and that he understood. 

****

“So where are we going?”

“Trust me,” Ron said. He wiped a hand over his sweaty forehead. “It’ll be worth it.”

Carwood, who trusted Ron so much he sometimes thought that it simply had to backfire on him someday, wondered if this might be the moment. They were walking through the woods, first at a brisk pace and now much more slowly, off the path and fighting branches and bushes and bugs. They’d startled two deer and a trio of birds. Ron kept insisting he knew where they were going, that he’d been there before, but Carwood was sure he was just saving face. The one upside to the hike was the privacy; he could look at Ron as he fretted, and no one was around to catalogue it and judge. 

Ron had asked him before they said goodbye last night if they could talk tomorrow, go somewhere private Ron knew of. Dick and Lew had soured whatever mood they’d been building up, so they didn’t talk any more after they bid them goodbye. Carwood had sensed the conversation that was coming and still didn’t look forward to it, but he agreed, heartened by the way Ron squeezed his hand before they parted. Talking was a step up from being treated like a stranger. 

Carwood had told Dick the truth; if Ron would have him, he’d commit to him. He didn’t know what that would look like, but he wanted to try. It was selfish, of course. Even if Margaret wanted to nix the vows, being with Ron was essentially self-serving. It wasn’t productive to  society; it couldn’t produce children. The relationship would have to be secret. He wouldn’t be able to tell his mother about it. Yet despite this, he wanted. Wanted so much it continually shocked him. 

He nearly stumbled over a branch, too caught up in his thoughts to react. The back of his neck prickled from sweat. He bit back a curse, about to ask Ron again how much farther they had to go, when Ron whipped around and said, “Do you want to be with me?” 

The question was a punch to the gut. Carwood scrubbed his hand over his face, breathing out hard. “What?” 

“After the war.” Ron reached out and pulled at Carwood’s wrist, pressing his thumb into his pulse. “Stay with me after the war.”

Carwood yanked himself out of Ron’s grip. “How the hell could you ask me that?”

Ron’s face fell. “What do you mean?”

“I thought we were finished.” 

“Finished?”

“You left me at the lake without a word. You haven’t spoken to me for days. What else was I supposed to think?” Saying it aloud made it sting all over again. Carwood backed up a few steps, against a tree. He felt a mosquito against his neck and slapped at it. 

Ron was studying his boots. He looked up, running his teeth over his bottom lip. “Carwood, I - How could you think that? I didn’t say anything like that. You were the one who kept the letter from me for two fucking weeks.”

“How could you be angry about that?” 

“Every day I thought you’d come to your senses. That you’d leave me. And then when you told me that you kept it for so long - I don’t know, do you want to make up with your wife?”

Ron’s voice, which had been rising, ended quietly. He looked at the ground again. Carwood took off his wedding ring and held it out. 

“No,” he said. “No, I don’t want to make up with her.” 

He pressed the ring into Ron’s hand. Ron took it gingerly, like he expected Carwood to snatch it back. “Carwood,” he started, but Carwood shook his head. 

“What about yours?” 

“I’m going to divorce her.” Ron squeezed his eyes shut. “Or separate from her, whatever’s better for the kid. She already told me she’s not going to leave England. And anyway, I don’t want to be with her.” He opened his eyes, searching over Carwood’s face - hungrily, Carwood thought. “I don’t care how that sounds. I want to be with you, if you’ll have me.”

Carwood swallowed. He tried to speak, but found he couldn’t. Ron didn’t want her. He didn’t even want to try to want her. 

Ron barreled on, looking Carwood in the eyes now, his own wide and sure. “But I’m not leaving the military. I talked to Sink yesterday, I’m going to sign a Regular commission when this war ends.”

“I figured you would,” Carwood said carefully. 

“And when there’s another war-”

“If,” Carwood interjected. 

“When,” Ron said. “There’s going to be another war, Carwood.”

Carwood felt his annoyance shoot up. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“What?”

“This one’s going to keep the peace.”

Ron scoffed. “Tell me you don’t believe that.”

“I do. We had to, in order to fight. You didn’t?”

“There’s always going to be another war. That’s what countries do, they get pissed at each other and start wars. There’s going to be another, with the Russians, I’ll bet.”

Carwood grimaced. “They’re on our side.”

“Not for long.” When Carwood shook his head, Ron repeated, “Not for long. We ought’ve turned the Germans back in the direction of the Soviets and made them fight, I swear.”

“So you’ve told me.”

“We’ll need to deal with them eventually.” Ron scrubbed a hand through his hair. “All I meant was that I intend to make the military my profession. When there’s another war, I’ll go.”

He seemed to need some confirmation. “I understand,” Carwood said, and Ron relaxed, some of the tension going out of his shoulders. Carwood added, “I’m not going to do that.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to go back to college once I’m back in the States.”

“You should,” Ron said, a note of approval in his voice. 

Carwood took a step forward. He slid his hand into Ron’s, linking their fingers together. “When you walked away from me,” he said, squeezing Ron’s hand when Ron seemed poised to interrupt, “I figured you didn’t want to be with me anymore. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the letter sooner. I just wasn’t sure where you stood.”

Ron opened his mouth, but Carwood said, “Let me finish.”

He took a deep breath. Speaking so nakedly felt ridiculous, but there was nothing to do besides push through. “I want to be with you,” he said. “Now, after the war, all of it. However long you’ll have me.” 

“It’ll be hard,” Ron said. 

“I know.”

Ron’s eyes searched his and apparently liked what he found, because Ron pushed him up against a tree and kissed him. It was a wet kiss, more from the sweat than their saliva, but that didn’t matter. Ron made a small noise, gripping the back of Carwood’s neck, palm pressing painfully against the mosquito bite, but that didn’t matter either. Carwood fisted his hand in Ron’s shirt, glad that they were alone, hidden by trees and brush, and smiled against Ron’s mouth.

“By the way,” Ron said when they pulled apart, “Dick’s transferring you.”

“I nearly forgot about that.” He’d known it was coming, but as the weeks and months passed, he’d wondered if the Brass would forget altogether. He took a deep breath and asked, “Where?”

Ron grinned. “You’re not going to mind it.”

“Ron.”

“Battalion Headquarters.” Ron kissed the dumbfounded look off of his face. “Act surprised when he tells you.”

****

Dick and Lewis had made them realize how tenuous their relationship’s secrecy was, and so, as July faded into August, they took pains to be seen apart as much as together. It helped that Carwood was processing paperwork at Battalion Headquarters instead of Easy’s and that the men were slipping away; every day, it seemed, he said goodbye and promised to write another friend. 

One day, he and Ron had ended up at the lake Ron had been trying to find, although Harry had tagged along, and Carwood had laughed when, later, Ron confessed he wanted to murder Harry for ruining his opportunity to kiss Carwood underwater. 

“We’ll have to go to the lake by my house when we’re both home,” Carwood had said, liking the pleased little smile that earned him. 

Promises hadn’t seemed to be enough, however, so a few nights later, Carwood found himself in Ron’s bed, Ron attacking his mouth with focus that made Carwood clutch at Ron’s back and lower. He squeezed Ron’s ass, which made Ron push back against his hands with even more urgency. Before Carwood could catch his breath, Ron flipped them over, tugging at Carwood until he laid on top of him, pressing Ron into the mattress.  

Ron relaxed under Carwood’s weight like he was used to it. Carwood swallowed around a lump in his throat, suddenly feeling green, and found himself saying, “How many men have you been with? Besides Nix.”

“You know about Nix?” Ron said. “How?”

“Dick told me. Back when they found us out. When’d it happen?”

“At Toccoa. We weren’t well suited to each other in that way. Besides,” Ron added, “he had his eyes on someone else.”

“Even then?”

Ron nodded. He pressed his fingertips into Carwood’s arm. “Does it matter?” 

"No, I suppose it doesn't," Carwood said after a moment. “But the others?”

"Only a few," Ron said. "None after I met you. ”

"Good," Carwood said, which made Ron huff out a laugh as he skated his fingers up Carwood's side. 

"And what about you? I assumed, but I don't think I've ever asked."

"No one but you."

Ron's hand tightened on Carwood’s hip. He reached up and pressed his lips to Carwood's with heat that made Carwood flush. "Very good," he said.

Carwood kissed him deeper. Ron made a soft noise, his hands loose on Carwood’s hips. When they broke apart, Carwood ran his fingers through Ron’s hair, pleased to see him so relaxed. 

“Did you ever go steady with anyone?” Carwood asked.

“I was with the same person nearly all four years of college,” Ron said. 

“Who?”

“My Greek professor,” Ron said. “Arthur Remington. He’s the head of the Classics department at Boston University. ”

Carwood’s hand slipped. “Your professor?”

“We were discreet. He was my advisor and teacher, it wasn’t like we weren’t supposed to have some sort of relationship anyway. He was my mentor.”

Carwood felt himself flush. It all sounded very glamorous, a sort of experience he would never even imagine occurring in fiction, much less in real life. “Mentor in more ways than one, I suppose.”

Ron laughed, startled. “Yes,” he said warmly. “Exactly. I knew I could tell you about this.”

“How much older was he?”

“Late forties. I was eighteen when it started.”

“Ron,” Carwood chided, suddenly full of concern for a younger and, apparently, more precocious Ron. “He didn’t take advantage of you?”

“Not at all,” Ron said. He sounded surprised. “I pursued him first, practically had to beg to get him to fuck me.”

Carwood sighed. Ron was grinning, completely aware of Carwood’s reaction to that particular vulgarity. He rolled them onto their sides, so they were facing each other. “He gave in eventually. Gave me the extra Greek tutoring I needed.”

“You are shameless.”

“We cared for each other,” Ron said, a touch more serious. “We had a real relationship. He was good to me.” He kissed Carwood on the lips, lingering, biting at the bottom one. “Do you want to hear how good he was?”

“Ron,” Carwood said again, his voice strangled. He slipped his arm around Ron’s waist, down low, as Ron pressed up against him. 

“He has this beautiful house right on on the edge of campus,” Ron said, kissing all over Carwood’s face, nipping at his neck, his Adam’s apple. “The first night he took me there, he kissed me right up against the wall beside the door. I’d been kissed before, but not like that. I remember feeling dizzy.”

Carwood rolled them over. Ron looked pleased, not at all concerned to be on his back again.  

“What happened next?” Carwood asked. He rubbed his thumb across Ron’s nipple. 

Ron twitched, biting his lip. “He asked me if I still wanted it. And I told him yes. So he took me to his bedroom and stripped off all my clothes.”

“You didn’t help?” Carwood began to trace slow circles around both nipples. 

“He didn’t want me to. He preferred to do it. Kissed my skin every time he got something new off.”

“You’ve done that to me.”

“Yes.” Ron drew in a breath when Carwood slipped a hand down to play with his cock. 

“Did he fuck you?” Carwood asked. It felt dirty to say so blatantly, but the word made Ron moan. 

“Yes.” Ron’s voice was breathy. “God, Carwood, I want you to fuck me.”

Carwood swallowed hard. Ron’s eyes were half-closed, remembering his time with Arthur, or else imagining what he wanted with Carwood. He let go of Ron’s cock, ignoring the whine Ron gave him, and kissed him, palms on either side of his face. “Like how he fucked you?”

Ron bucked up suddenly, as though he couldn’t help it. Carwood held him in place, and Ron seemed to like that, if the way he went pliant was any indication. Carwood pressed down harder, rubbing against him. “How did he-”

Ron opened his eyes, seeking out Carwood’s. “He asked me to look at him the whole time. While his fingers were in me. His cock.” He grabbed at Carwood’s arm. “I want it with you. Please. When we have the time.”

Ron looked desperate even though they weren’t very far along, hair messy over his forehead, dragging his teeth over his bottom lip. Pleasure spiked along Carwood’s body, increasing the hunger he had for him until he couldn’t do anything besides lean down for another kiss.  

“And the privacy,” he promised. 

****

“So, are you going to tell me about it sometime?” Harry said, sliding into the seat across from Carwood’s in the mess hall. 

“What?” Carwood asked. He forced himself to act nonchalant. Harry wouldn’t want to discuss what he feared. He couldn’t, the thought wouldn’t even cross his mind. Carwood took a big gulp of water, waiting, and relaxed when Harry tapped Carwood’s ring finger. 

“I’m sorry.” Harry grimaced. “What’d she tell you?”

“Oh.” Carwood looked down at the bare finger. Ron had pocketed the ring in the forest, and Carwood hadn’t asked for it back. He wasn’t sure what Ron did with it, but he found he didn’t much care, even if it seemed callous to even think privately. “She met someone else.”

“That’s rough. Some 4-F?”

“I don’t know, she didn’t mention. I don’t think it would’ve worked out anyway,” Carwood said. “We weren’t a very good match.”

“You must’ve gotten married for some reason,” Harry said earnestly. 

Carwood just shook his head. “She’s a great girl, just not for me. I’m not heartbroken, really.”

“Mm,” Harry said. He gave Carwood a look that made the back of Carwood’s neck prickle. Then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and said, “Did I tell you Kitty set the wedding guest list?”

Carwood smiled, happy to have the conversation turn to Harry’s wedding plans. “Sounds like it took awhile.”

“You’re invited, of course,” Harry said. 

“I’m touched,” Carwood said sincerely. “But don’t feel like you have to.”

“Nonsense.” Harry fumbled in his pocket for his pack of smokes and his lighter. He held them out to Carwood, who declined, and said firmly, “Not sure when it’ll be yet, it depends on when all this wraps up, of course, but you’ll come.”  

“I’d like to meet Kitty.”

Harry lit up his cigarette and took a deep drag. “Maybe you’ll be able to drag Ron along, considering you’re so chummy. Kitty wants to meet him. I think they’ll hit it off, personally. Dick’s not so sure, but then, he only met Kitty the once.” 

“Ron can be charming when he wants to be.”

Harry barked out a laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“He can be very complimentary of a lady under the right circumstances,” Carwood said. 

“Maybe Kitty can set him up with one of her friends at the wedding.”

Before Carwood could respond, Ron slid into the chair next to him. His foot knocked into Carwood’s under the table, a silent hello. “Let’s see how the divorce goes,” he said mildly. 

He was smoking a cigarette on its last legs. After one more drag, he flicked it into the ashtray, smirking at Harry’s double take. 

“You’re married?” Harry said. “When did this happen?” 

“Before I met you, certainly. She’s English.” 

“I thought that was only a rumor.” 

“Pass me another, will you?”  

Harry held out his pack, still gaping. “But you’re divorcing her.”

Ron shrugged as he lit up. “I haven’t exactly been hiding it from you, Welsh.”

Harry glared Carwood, holding his cigarette out accusingly. “You knew and didn’t tell me.” 

“He has a son,” Carwood said, catching onto Ron’s playful mood. It was entirely too easy to get Harry worked up; he spluttered, looking between the two of them, still stabbing at the air with his smoke. 

“I can’t believe you beat me to that,” Harry grumbled. 

“Buck up, you’re going to beat all of us for who has the happiest marriage,” Ron said. “Or simply the most intact one.”

Harry smirked. “I suppose I’m having trouble thinking anyone could like you enough to put up with your nuttiness, Sparky.” 

“I’m flattered,” Ron said, but he ruined his usual deadpan tone with a hint of a smile. 

“Why would you divorce her?” 

“Let’s just say she was in the family way when I married her and we don’t really have much of a relationship,” Ron said. That shut up Harry good and quick. 

****

The night the war ended, everyone got rip-roaring drunk. 

Men barely remembered Captain Speirs’s standing order to keep your drunkenness inside, flitting between the hotels and chalets that made up their billets. Carwood moved between the main party, where George led the men in songs and Joe scuffled with anyone who looked at him wrong, and the more exclusive one Ron and Lewis and the other officers were having in the bar of one of the fancier hotels. He had a glass of champagne and figured he was done; he’d never minded being the sober one at the party, and he had Dick for company. 

Until Ron pulled him over to the bar and asked what he was having. It seemed that between Ron and Lewis, they were able to make any number of cocktails, and they’d been experimenting with crème de menthe and liqueurs and expensive Italian vermouths. Ron expertly put together two French 75s and let Carwood taste first. Carwood made a face at the champagne and the deeper taste of gin. “Bartender in college,” Ron said in explanation, getting to work on a tray of martinis. 

The night had turned hazy after that, so Carwood supposed it was a blessing when he woke up the next morning and saw he was alone in a room upstairs, instead of passed out against Ron or something equally risky. He put himself to rights and went in search of a cup of coffee. He didn’t have much of a headache, but he’d be willing to bet most of the company would be sick this morning. The whole world over would be a party for days, and soldiers were nearly as good at celebrating as they were at making war. 

He found Ron and Lewis sleeping soundly on a couch downstairs. With their matching dark hair, Ron’s head on Lewis’s shoulder, they made a neat picture. They looked like they could be cousins or even brothers. It made Carwood smile. He noticed that Harry was passed out in an armchair at the other end of the room, an empty champagne bottle in his hands. 

He was going to leave them when he saw Ron blinking awake. Carwood put his finger over his lips, gesturing to Harry and Lewis, but Ron sat up, causing Lewis’s head to drop down to his chest. 

He started, but kept his eyes closed. “What time is it?”

“7:30,” Ron said, checking his watch. 

“Too early.” Lewis tried to settle back into the couch, looking about ready to spend the day there. 

Ron stretched, then went limp, clutching a hand to his head. “Goddamn. Do you think there’d be any Worcester sauce around here?”  

“Why?” Carwood asked. 

Lewis opened his eyes, making a face. “Those are disgusting.” 

“What are?” 

“Prairie oysters,” Ron answered. “Hangover cure.”

“Raw eggs,” Lewis said. “He wants to eat raw eggs doused in hot sauce and that godawful Worcestershire sauce, Lip.”

“And salt and pepper,” Ron added. 

Lewis rolled his eyes. “Forgive me. That really gives it the kick it needs to qualify as fine dining.” 

“Does that actually work?”

“No,” Lewis said before Ron could answer. He stood up steadily, scrubbing a hand over his face. He needed a shave, his beard was coming in thickly. He stretched onto his toes. “Say, have you seen Dick around anywhere?”

When he’d stomped loudly out of the room - on purpose, if the way Ron glared at him and grit his teeth was any indication - Carwood went over to Harry and pried the champagne bottle out of his hands. 

“Think we ought to wake him?”

“No,” Ron said. His hair sticking up weirdly. He tried to tame it with his fingers, but Carwood figured he’d do better with a mirror and a wet comb. “Let him be.” 

“Looks like he fell asleep in the middle of writing Kitty,” Carwood said. There was a letter spread out on the side table next to the chair. It wasn’t a very good letter; Harry had gotten the date wrong and spilled ink all over the middle. “Kitty,” it started, “you won’t believe the news but the war is OVER.”

“There’s no point in writing her, I’m sure she knows already,” Ron said. He closed his eyes. “I really need that Worcester sauce.”

“How about some coffee instead?” 

Ron perked up at the idea of coffee. “I’ll meet you down here in a minute, I just want to go clean up.”

When he came back, dressed in a fresh uniform, hair wet and combed, he looked a little better. Carwood suspected he emptied his stomach before he got in the shower. But despite the fact he looked ready to march, whatever good mood he’d woken up with was gone, and breakfast veered on painfully silent. 

****

Ron’s bad mood continued the rest of the day. The boys were certainly cheerful, as were the rest of the officers, everyone’s excitement increasing as it started to sink in that they were all going to get to go home, regardless of points. But Ron stood apart from the festivities, and Carwood let him be. He thought he knew what the trouble was and wasn’t looking forward to facing it. 

Mid-afternoon, he found himself acting a buffer for Webster and Lieb. He barely paid attention to what they were saying, knowing full well at this point that their bickering somehow meant that all was well for them, and laughed along when Lieb grew frustrated enough to shove Webster into the lake. Web, who was wearing his full uniform, came up spluttering and dripping, and dragged Lieb by his collar into the water. Carwood escaped before they could gang up on him, as they sometimes did to others when they both hit the right mood at the same time, smiling at the echoes of their shouting. 

It had gotten uncomfortably warm in that sticky August way, so Carwood tugged off his tie as he wandered in Ron’s direction. He wondered if he might be able to make Ron smile like he had before he went to go get ready for breakfast. He’d looked like he must have in college most weekends, hung over and somehow not minding very much. Maybe, Carwood thought, heading to Arthur’s house, if he wasn’t there already. 

It could be that it simply hadn’t sunk in for Ron yet. Yet Carwood doubted that; Ron was the type to always know where he was the moment he opened his eyes in the morning. Too sharp for his own good. 

As for Carwood, he’d known that the end was coming, but now that it was here, it didn’t feel real. He’d survived. They’d lost plenty of good men, but by God’s grace, he’d survived, and so had Ron. He couldn’t even begin to make sense of that, if there was any explanation for it in the first place. He used to wonder, like most men in war zones, why some men lived and others died. Why he had mere scars and other men nursed missing limbs. But the longer the war had gone on, the easier it was to just quit pondering on such things and take them as they came. He couldn’t do a damn thing about them anyway. 

He found Ron sitting by himself on the balcony of his chalet, not bothering with any of the chairs, just hunkered down in a good, defensible position - his back against the wall, half-hidden from visitors upon a first glance. He was staring off into the sky, but when Carwood stepped towards him, he looked over. 

“What, no target practice this time?” Carwood asked.

Ron shook his head. “I haven’t drunk enough.”

“I’m still amazed your aim was that good, given how sloshed you were.” Carwood eased down next to Ron. The wood was warm against his back. Below, flecks of swimmers stood out against the cerulean water, small enough he couldn’t make out Webster and Lieb. 

He’d thought he would come across Ron brooding, his hands clenching and unclenching, perhaps, like they did when he was frustrated. He’d come by ready for a fight, already bracing himself against the jagged edges of Ron’s personality. But Ron looked like he might fall asleep, lazily shading his eyes against the sun instead of putting on the sunglasses in his shirt pocket.  

He nudged his boot against Carwood’s. “When you were on the balcony with me,” he started.

“What?”

“The balcony of the chalet in Berchtesgaden. You were shaking your head at all the broken glass, sure I’d hurt someone. You stepped into the light to pick up some of the pieces.” Some of Ron’s usual intensity flooded the end of that sentence, although Carwood didn’t know why. 

“I remember.” 

“I wanted you so badly.” His voice was hoarse. “I’d never wanted someone so much in my life.” His hands twitched, as if he wanted to reach out. “I’d thought about it before, but that was the moment I knew I couldn’t let you go without trying it. Even if I kissed you and you pushed me away, I had to try it.”

“Ron.” Now Carwood understood the urgency in Ron’s voice. He scrambled for a suitable response, but nothing came to mind. “Why didn’t you right then?”

“Harry. Harry followed you up, do you remember? And we took turns with the gun after that. Well, the two of us, you left.”

That day had been so beautiful. A courageous blue sky, sunlight that had shimmered in the air. Carwood had thought Ron looked particularly handsome, flushed with drink and waving his .45 around more than strictly necessary.  

“That doesn’t explain why you’ve been moping all day.”

“I’m not moping.”

“What do you call hiding up here, then?”

Ron didn’t answer for a long moment. Then, “The war is over.”

“Yes,” Carwood said, feeling himself to start to smile. He faltered when he caught sight of Ron’s face. “What is it?”

“I can’t believe I’m alive,” Ron said quietly. He glanced at Carwood, a shocked look on his face, and knocked his fists into his knees. 

Ron’s utter surprise felt like a splash of cold water. “Did you think you wouldn’t?”

“I just - I suppose I figured I wouldn’t. I figured if the Krauts couldn’t get me, the Japs would finish the job.”

Carwood suddenly remembered, feeling a bit sick, that Ron had gotten hit in the side with mortar on the way to Haguenau. He’d hid it from everyone until Carwood noticed he looked pale and sent him, none too gently, in Roe’s direction. He’d gone with him and saw the dark gummy blood, how Roe had to rip Ron’s shirt from his body, all while scolding him until he looked properly chastised. Roe had told Carwood later that Ron could have easily gotten an infection if he left it any longer. 

“You don’t want to die, do you?” Carwood held his breath, wondering how the hell he could he have thought he knew Ron and missed something so essential. 

“No,” Ron said. He slumped against Carwood’s shoulder, squeezing Carwood’s knee reassuringly. “Jesus, no. Never.”

“Then why-”

“It was just one of those things I thought I knew,” Ron said. 

Ron’s hand felt a touch too warm. Had he been out here since morning? Soaking in the sun, looking back at every opportunity the Krauts had to kill him and marveling at his own good luck? 

“I’m not the only one who’s been thinking like that,” he added, as if that made it any better. “It just occurred to me that the war’s over and you’re still here and I’m still here, and-”

“Ron,” Carwood interrupted, shoving at him until he was sitting upright. “If I’m going to leave you, believe me, you’ll know.”

“I didn’t think… hell, maybe I did,” Ron said dejectedly. “I don’t know.” 

Carwood shook his head. “Stop making assumptions.”

“But-”

“Be happy we got through it,” Carwood said. “Please, just celebrate. You said yourself there’ll be another war. You’ll have more chances to kill yourself in battle someday.” Like hell if he would let that happen. 

“You’re upset.” 

“I’m not going to sit here and watch you brood over the fact you’re not going to get to go kill any Japs,” Carwood snapped. “Or that they’re across the world and can’t get to you.”

He stood up, brushing himself off jerkily. 

Ron scrambled to his feet. “Carwood,” he said. “Wait.”

“We’re going to get to go home,” Carwood said. “Together, like you keep saying you want. You’re going to see Boston again, your sisters and your parents. Isn’t that why we were fighting in the first place? We kept them safe and now we get to see them again.” He felt like shouting. “Do you know how many men we fought with would kill for that chance?”

Ron looked like Carwood had slapped him. “You’re right,” he said, and Carwood hated how miserable he sounded. An incensed Ron he could deal with, but he wasn’t sure what to do with this spineless version. 

“I need to go.” 

“Don’t. Don’t leave,” Ron said, reaching out to spin Carwood back around. 

“I just want to go cool off,” Carwood said, shaking Ron’s arm off. 

“Carwood,” Ron said, his voice breaking.  

They looked at each other, squinting against the sunlight, Carwood sighing when he realized he didn’t have the heart to run contrary to Ron for very long. “Alright,” he said. “Alright, I’m not going anywhere. But only if you get over yourself.”

They ended up inside, just in case anyone came looking. Both of them on the floor, Ron’s head in Carwood’s lap. He squeezed his eyes shut and apologized. Carwood just asked him to talk about his home. 

****

The day Carwood and Ron arrived in England, it was pouring so hard they could barely see as they dashed into a cab. The driver grumbled at the two Yanks crowding his backseat until they asked for Winchester, nearly two hours away. Ron promised him a big tip if he would get them there as quickly as he could despite the weather, and that made the driver, who was older and probably had a fair amount of experience with American GIs at this point, brighten even more. 

“Are you nervous?” Carwood asked when they’d pulled away from the docks. The car was small, so his thigh pressed into Ron’s, not that he minded. 

They’d traveled from Austria to France by train, bodies touching in much the same way because it was so crowded with soldiers heading home, and they’d spent most of the trip to England leaning over the railing of the deck so Carwood, who didn’t really enjoy sea travel, wouldn’t get too nauseous. It had been uncomfortable, although Carwood figured he’d never complain about mere discomfort ever again, knowing just how bad it could get. And anyway, it seemed worth it, to Carwood, if the careful way Ron was clutching his furlough pass was any indication. 

“Surely a baby won’t judge me,” Ron said. “Elise is a different story.”

“Do you still want me to come along?”

“Of course,” Ron said, as if that should be obvious. “I want you to meet him.”

“How old is he?” the cabbie asked conversationally. 

“Nearly nine months,” Ron said without missing a beat. He didn’t offer more information, but Carwood was pleasantly surprised to see that he answered every question the cabbie had in detail, even showing him the small photograph of William he carried in his breast pocket when they stopped for gas. 

Winchester looked a lot like Aldbourne, not that Carwood knew enough about English towns to make a definitive judgement. Crowded buildings and crooked stone walls, a quaint sort of atmosphere that reminded him of his neighborhood in Huntington, minus the wrap-around porches, wooden siding swapped out for stone and brick. When the cabbie let them out, it was merely drizzling, so he and Ron took off down the main road at a leisurely pace. 

“Remember where we’re going?” Carwood asked when Ron stopped under an awning. 

Ron scoffed at the jab. “I did live down here for a time.”

“Were you billeted with her family?” Carwood asked, even though he wasn’t sure how much he wanted to know about Elise.  

“No. It would have been very improper, then, for me to court her,” Ron said, grinning. “No, I lived next door.”

Carwood laughed in spite of himself. He tried to tamp down his jealousy, since this wasn’t the time nor the place for it, but then Ron added playfully, “What was I supposed to do? She was always walking around in her ATS uniform, looking so capable,” and Carwood told him to get a move on. 

****

At the right house - a very nice house, with a well-maintained lawn and a charming vine growing up the side - Ron knocked on the door, his cap in his hands. Carwood, three steps behind, watched as he cleared his throat, shifting from one foot to the next. 

A man opened the door. 

Ron hesitated a second, then said, “I’m looking for Elise Speirs. Is she in?”

The man took a few steps forward, leaving the dark maw of the doorway open behind him. He had a good three or four inches on Ron, and broader shoulders, too, yet it didn’t add anything to his demeanor; Ron had a stride that reminded Carwood of a loaded spring, but this man walked with all the definition of a jellyfish. 

He had a scar that ran from eye to chin, plus another on his throat, wide and gaping, as though someone had tried to cut his windpipe and failed. He got up close to Ron, who didn’t flinch, and said, “Are you the Yankee prick who fucked my wife?” 

“As I recall,” Ron said without missing a beat, “I was comforting a widow mourning the loss of her husband.” 

The man punched the smirk off Ron’s face, sending him stumbling backwards. He brought his hands up to retaliate, but before either of them could go at it again, Carwood rushed forward and pulled them apart. 

“Boys, calm down,” he said, but neither paid the slightest bit of attention to him. 

“You dirty fucking Yank, you seduced her.”  

“She thought you were dead! What did you expect, her to never move on with her life?”

“Ron,” Carwood said, shoving at Ron’s chest, “be quiet.” 

“You ruined her,” the man hissed. 

“I gave her my name.” Ron spit out a mouthful of blood. “I was helping her!”

“Stop it!” A young woman holding a large umbrella, her arms full of wrapped packages, ran towards them from the street. She tossed everything aside and tugged on the man’s arm. “Henry, let it go!”

“Is this him?”

“Henry, please!” She looked over at Ron. “Oh God, you’re hurt.”

“Elise, is this him?” Henry demanded. 

“Yes,” Elise said. “But don’t-”

Henry tried to grab Ron again, but Carwood elbowed him in the stomach, shoving harder when Henry tried to retaliate. “Control yourself,” he commanded. 

“And who the fuck are you?” Henry asked. 

“Just a friend,” Carwood replied. “You really need to calm down.”

Elise threw Carwood a grateful look. “You promised me you wouldn’t do this,” she told Henry, shaking his arm a little. “Please. He’s just here to see his son.”

Henry took a few steps back. Carwood, not entirely trusting Ron to resist the urge to jump him, kept a firm hand on Ron’s chest.  

“And sign the divorce papers,” Henry said. 

“He’ll sign them.”

“Oh, believe me, that’s the first thing on my mind,” Ron said, glowering at Elise. 

“Why don’t you go for a walk, Henry?” Elise said. 

“It’s raining out.” 

Something about his tone must have exasperated her past her breaking point, because she picked up her umbrella and thrust it at him. “I don’t care! He’s his son, you can’t keep him from seeing him. Come back when you can act like a gentleman.”

“I don’t want you to be alone with him.”

“I’m not alone, Mother’s with me. And Ronald’s friend.” She smiled at Carwood, trying very hard, he noticed, to make it graceful. 

When Henry finally conceded to leave them alone for awhile, Carwood and Ron helped Elise pick up the packages. She sighed when she noticed that the bread was soaked through with rainwater. 

“I’m sorry,” she said once they got everything inside. She unwrapped the scarf from her hair, revealing it to be blonde and braided, and ran her hand over her head to neaten it up. “You must think I’m a mess.”

She was pretty in a dependable sort of way, Carwood thought. Eyes like a doe’s, high cheekbones, a small cross at her throat. He had every reason to have an uncharitable opinion of her, but she looked smart in her ATS uniform, and he couldn’t muster up anything but worry at her association with Henry.

“Do you feel safe with him?” Carwood asked.

“Yes,” she said. She sounded surprised. “I promise he’s usually not at all like this. It’s just - well, you can imagine how surprised he was when he returned.”

“I’m surprised too,” Ron said. His tone was neutral, but Carwood could tell from the way he held himself that he was annoyed. 

Elise led them into the kitchen, gesturing for them to sit at a small table in the corner. She handed Ron some ice wrapped in a hand towel. 

“Does it hurt?” Carwood asked, leaning across to take a good look at it. “He didn’t get you in the teeth, did he?”

“No,” Ron said. He wiped away the blood with the towel, shrugging apologetically at Elise when she said, “Goodness, I should have offered you the bathroom to start, I’m sorry.” 

“I’m alright.”

She started up a pot of tea. “His whole unit was captured,” she said as she got the teacups down from the cupboard, “in Italy. They thought he’d been killed. But he was actually a prisoner of war. He just got home last week.”

“When’d you hear from him?”

“When he was recovering in a hospital in Italy.” Elise put away the groceries that were still intact, sighing again at the state of the bread. “Do either of you want sugar or milk in your tea?”

“So you knew.”

“Excuse me?”

“You knew,” Ron repeated. “You knew before he came home that he was alive. You could’ve written and mentioned it while I was still in Austria.”

Elise shut the icebox door and leaned against the countertop. “I know,” she said quietly. “I just didn't want to disappoint you into not coming at all.”

“Don't flatter yourself, Elise,” Ron said, with coldness Carwood felt was unnecessary, given how Elise’s face crumpled. “And what are you playing at, thinking I wouldn't want to come see my own son?” 

“So you really don’t mind signing the divorce papers? Because I do want to remarry Henry.”

“Not at all.”

“I hope you're very happy with her,” Elise said, after a moment. 

“Oh, believe me, it suits me better,” Ron said. He didn’t look at Carwood, but he nudged his foot under the table.  

“Do you want the ring back?”

“Keep it.”

The kettle whistled. Elise poured the tea at the table, a wan sort of smile on her face. “I really have lost my manners today,” she said apologetically. “I haven’t even asked to be introduced to your friend, Ronald.”

“It’s been a strange day. I’m Carwood Lipton,” Carwood said. He held out his hand for her to shake. 

“Second Lieutenant Carwood Lipton,” Ron corrected. 

“Did you two serve together?”

“We were in the same company,” Ron said. “He’s one of the best soldiers I’ve ever met.”

“Well,” Elise said, “it’s a good thing you were on our side, then, Mr. Lipton.” 

The pause that followed, which became awkward the longer Ron and Elise avoided each other’s gazes, broke, mercifully, when a baby started to cry somewhere in the house. Ron snapped to attention. 

“I suppose you want to see him,” Elise said, getting to her feet. “He was napping earlier, I didn’t want to wake him.”

“Please,” Ron said. Carwood was heartened to see how earnest he looked. 

“My mother takes care of him while I’m at work,” Elise said, leading the way down the hallway. 

“And how is the ATS?” Ron asked. 

“Very well, thank you,” she said. “I’m quite a good lorry driver now.”

“That’s nice.”

Elise stopped at the door of a small nursery, where an older woman, her grey hair twisted into a neat up-do, rocked a dark-haired baby. 

“Mother,” she said, “you remember Ronald, don’t you? And he brought along a friend, Mr. Lipton.”

“Hello, Marie,” Ron said.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Carwood said. 

“It’s nice to see you again, Ronald.” Marie turned to Carwood, smiling. “And it’s always pleasant to meet another handsome American boy. Where’s Henry?”  

“He’s out for a walk,” Elise said quickly, taking the baby when Marie handed him off. 

At the doorway Marie said, “He’s a very sweet child. Very bright. You ought to be proud, Ronald.”

Elise beckoned Ron over. “He’s generally well-behaved,” she said, “but now that he’s learned to crawl, he keeps wanting to run off to explore.” William made a discontented noise, wriggling a little in Elise’s arms. “Like that,” she said, smiling. “Here, do you want to hold him?”

She set William in Ron’s arms gently. “That’s it,” she said when Ron automatically shifted William into the crook of his arm. He traced one of William’s tiny ears, stroked a finger down his nose. 

Carwood smiled at the look of wonder on his face. His usual single-mindedness was there, but softer, more subdued. He wore a delighted grin, and it grew wider when William reached up to touch his face. Ron caught his hand and pressed a kiss to it. “He's perfect,” he told Elise.  

Carwood was startled to see that she had her hand over her mouth. She blinked back tears carefully, then smoothed William's hair away from his forehead. “I don't regret it, you know.”

“Good.” Ron’s voice had grown rough. He wiped at his eyes, then kissed William’s head. William consented to his for a moment, but then he began to babble, reaching for his own feet. 

“Do you want to see how well he crawls? I’m sure he’s feeling energetic after his nap,” Elise said. “Put him down, he’ll probably start down the hallway.”

Ron clutched William tighter for a moment, then let him down carefully. He immediately went for Ron’s shoes, slapping at them with his chubby hands, then made his way to the door determinedly. 

Elise was right, he did crawl well. Ron plunked himself down at the end of the hallway, legs crossed, arms reaching out, and watched with a moony look on his face as William crawled in his direction. When William got to him and hit his shoes again, Ron took one off, letting William shake it. 

“It seems he’s a natural with babies,” Elise said to Carwood from where they stood watching a few feet away. 

“Likely just with his own,” Carwood said. 

Elise sniffled. She dabbed at her face with a handkerchief carefully, so as not to ruin her makeup. “It’s sweet,” she said. “Some men - well, you know they’re not interested. I wasn’t sure if he would be.”

“He’s been talking about this trip nonstop.”

Ron hugged William to his chest, kissing both his cheeks. William rewarded him with a burbled giggle. Elise must have noticed Carwood’s smile, because she said, “Did you two enlist together?”

Carwood glanced at her, raising his eyebrows. “What makes you think that?” 

“There’s just something about you two,” she said. “I don’t know what. You seem like old friends.”

“We actually didn’t know each other before Ron took over my company,” Carwood said. “Although we became fast friends once that happened.”

“Well, maybe that’s - Oh, Ron,” Elise called, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Ron was on his knees, tossing William up in the air and catching him. “He likes it,” Ron said. “I’m not going to drop him.” As if in agreement, William shrieked delightedly once he was back in Ron’s arms, clapping his hands. 

“Be careful,” she chided. To Carwood, she said, “I’m so glad he’s in a good mood for Ron. He’s been fussy lately. I think it’s the teething.”

William did seem content, bright-eyed and engrossed now in exploring the buttons on Ron’s shirt and his tie. Ron let him try to undo the knot while he pressed his nose to William’s hair, breathing in deeply. 

Marie called for Elise from the kitchen. “Excuse me,” Elise said, brushing past Carwood. “You’ll be okay by yourselves for a moment, won’t you?”

When she’d gone, Carwood walked over to Ron, smiling down at him and William. “How are you doing?”

Ron stood, William’s chubby hands still working at his tie. Ron was wearing a beautiful smile on his face. Carwood wanted to kiss him badly. Just once on the mouth, or on his cheek, even. But of course he couldn’t. 

Ron held William out. “Here, do you want to hold him?”

“Are you sure?”  

“I want you to,” Ron said. Carwood’s heart fluttered at the look of concentration on Ron's face as he carefully passed William over. William didn’t fuss, just looked up at Carwood with wide, curious eyes. 

Ron tickled his little bare feet, which made him giggle and squirm in Carwood’s arms. “I think he likes you.”

It had been a long time since Carwood had held a baby. He was heavier than he thought he might be, and warmer, too. His thick black hair was so much like Ron’s it made Carwood smile, but he quickly sobered when he remembered it would stand as a visible contrast to Elise and Henry, who were both blond.   

****

That evening, they took a room in a small boarding house run by two spinster sisters. The sisters tried to apologize for the single double bed, but Carwood assured them that it wasn’t a problem, given that they’d endured much worse during the war. They ate dinner with the boarders, the sisters making most of the conversation once they learned that Carwood ran a boarding house back in America. Ron seemed content to smoke and listen to the conversation, but once they got away, Carwood saw that his quietness was due to a dose of melancholy, not contentment. 

“It was nice meeting William,” Carwood said, trying to gauge the depth of Ron’s mood.

Ron, who was untying his boots, nodded. 

“He looks so much like you,” Carwood continued. “Wasn’t it sweet when he played with your cap?”

Ron didn’t answer, just walked over and wrapped his arms around Carwood’s waist. 

“What’s the matter?” Carwood put his hands over Ron’s, turning to kiss his cheek. 

“Henry.”

“I feel badly for him,” Carwood said carefully. “He must have endured a lot to be able to get back home. And that scar on his throat, did you see it?”

“I don’t want him around my son.”

“I don’t know if you have much of a choice,” Carwood said. “Elise seems determined to keep him.”

“If he doesn’t like me, that’s one thing, but William doesn’t deserve any shit from him.” 

“You’ll have to make that clear, then.”

“Even so, it’s not like I could back it up. I’ll be across a fucking ocean,” Ron said. He broke away from Carwood and started to strip jerkily. “Do you know how many miles it is? I looked it up, just to see.”

“Ron-”

“3,235 miles between here and Boston,” Ron said. “A whole ocean.” When he got down to his undershirt and shorts, he slumped on the bed, his face in his hands. 

Carwood sat down beside him. “You’re going to see him again,” he said, rubbing Ron’s back. “Starting with tomorrow.”

“He’s not even going to remember this. How the hell am I going to be there for him if he doesn’t even know who I am?”

“When he’s older he can come and visit. Or you can visit him.”

“Maybe.”

“Regardless, he’s your son. Elise already said that’s how he’s going to be raised. He’s going to keep your name.” Carwood tried to be as soothing as possible with his ministrations, so he was surprised when Ron turned toward him and kissed him so hard their teeth clashed together. 

“I can’t think about it anymore right now,” Ron explained when Carwood pulled back in concern. 

“Are you sure?” Carwood said, but Ron just kissed him again. He tipped them both backwards so they were on their sides, curled up together. 

Carwood tried to protest one more time, but Ron seemed determined. “Time and privacy,” he said. “We have both now.” 

Carwood flushed. “That’s true,” he managed to say as Ron undid his belt. “You want to now?”

“Yes.” Ron nipped at Carwood’s lips, rubbing up against him. Things went very quickly after that, both of them stripping out of the rest of their clothes, Ron frantically looking for the tin of vaseline and finding it, eventually, crammed into the side of his bag. Carwood, wanting to savor the moment, held Ron in place with a firm kiss. Ron conceded to this briefly, letting Carwood hold him still, but then he grew impatient and rolled to the side.

“Wait, wait. Not that I don’t like kissing you,” he said, getting to his knees, a smirk on his face, “but I think I can make it better for both of us.” 

Carwood sat back, propping himself up on his elbows, as Ron got his fingers slick from the vaseline. Then he smiled and said, "Wait," again before reaching behind himself. 

Carwood instantly felt hot all over. Ron leaned forward, biting his lip in concentration, as Carwood watched. Then he gasped softly, and that made Carwood grab at his unoccupied arm. 

“Patience,” Ron said. “It's been awhile since I've done this, you know.”

Carwood's fingers tightened on Ron's bicep. “How long?”

“Back in America,” Ron said. 

“Arthur?”

“Someone else.” He screwed his eyes shut. “I’ve missed it. I've been thinking about you fucking me for months now.”

Carwood shot up and cupped Ron’s cheek, rubbing a thumb over his lips. “Ron,” he said urgently, and Ron opened his eyes. They looked right at each other, Ron's eyes stripped naked like his body, intent enough to make Carwood shiver and press their foreheads together. Ron did something else with his fingers, added another or twisted them, and moaned. Carwood stole the rest of the noise out of his mouth with a kiss. He stroked up and down Ron's arm until Ron pulled out his fingers and gently shoved at Carwood. 

Carwood lay on his back. Ron settled over him. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Carwood said. Ron stroked his cock with wet fingers, the touch alone enough to make Carwood's stomach tighten even as he twitched from the slight coolness of the vaseline, but then Ron took him in slowly, even tighter around him than he’d imagined he might be, and Carwood had to grab at Ron's arms again to keep from bucking upwards. 

“Easy,” Ron said. He squirmed a little on top of Carwood. He was flushed, hair falling over his forehead. “I’m out of practice.”

Carwood didn't breathe as Ron started to move, minutely at first, as if getting used to the feeling, and then with proper thrusts. Carwood jerked his hips up to meet him when he came down, and that made Ron groan loudly enough Carwood pushed himself up, grabbing at Ron so they could kiss. Carwood tugged at Ron's cock, pressing his thumb against the head. 

Ron faltered, whimpered into Carwood’s mouth. Carwood could feel him trembling, too overwhelmed to continue his thrusts, and flipped them over, so Ron was on his back. “What-” Ron said, but then Carwood pressed in again, slowly, mouthing at Ron’s shoulder.

“Harder,” he moaned, digging his heels into Carwood’s lower back. 

Something about the position, maybe, or the way Carwood was kissing him made Ron shake sharply. Carwood felt greedy, treasuring each gasp, the way Ron’s fingernails dug into his back. How Ron looked like this, his cheeks pink, mouth slack. 

“Open your eyes,” Carwood said. Ron didn’t at first, but then he opened them one by one, and Carwood was shocked to see they looked wet. 

Carwood stilled, his body straining from the effort. “I love you,” he said. He felt like he might burst, about to shout or cry like Ron or come. Ron looked dumbfounded, so much so that Carwood laughed and kissed him, his hand cradling the back of Ron’s head. "I love you," he repeated.

“Carwood,” Ron said, after a stunned second, “I love you too.”

****

Ron went back to Elise’s the next day to sign the divorce papers and to have a talk with Henry about William. Carwood, after extracting a promise from Ron not to start another fight if he could help it, stayed behind to write to his mother about the details of his ticket back home. She’d sent him a long letter right after the end of the war, asking when she’d get to see him, and he was happy to finally be able to give her a definitive answer. 

That morning, Carwood had woken up with Ron burrowed against him. Carwood had stayed in bed for several minutes, stroking his hand up and down Ron’s side, until his bladder protested. He had been so pleased at the thought of being able to wake up with Ron every morning once they were both back in America that he’d smiled all through breakfast, even when Ron teased him about it. It would likely take them awhile to get there, considering that Ron still had to stay behind in Europe to wrap up the business end of the war and that they’d have to see where the army saw fit to station him after, but the mere thought of it was enough to make Carwood feel giddy. And they had four more nights together before Carwood left England. 

When he finished up the letter he walked to the post office and mailed it, then wandered around the town. The sky was clearer today, the sun winking behind heavy clouds. He felt fresh when he returned to the boarding house and found Ron sitting at the desk, smoking. 

“I gave William a bath,” Ron started, and Carwood was happy to listen as he explained in detail how William loved splashing around, giggling uncontrollably every time he managed to hit Ron with water. 

****

At the shipyard, Ron pulled Carwood into a tight embrace, the backslapping type men usually reserved for friends or brothers. Not the goodbye either of them wanted, but better than nothing, considering they were in the middle of a crowd. Soldiers stood on the dock everywhere you looked, a dull swarm of brown uniforms hugging, yelling goodbyes, shaking hands. When Ron let him go, Carwood swallowed around a lump in his throat that he supposed he ought to have expected. 

“You’re going to see William again today?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Ron said. “And then back to France tomorrow.”

“Stay safe.”

“You’ll write?”

“Of course.” 

Ron smiled, reaching out to pull Carwood into another hug, his face pressed up against Carwood’s shoulder. “Safe journey,” he said, and his tone made Carwood certain he wasn’t the only one fighting some inappropriate outburst of emotion. 

He saluted Ron one more time, for the last time, not that he wanted to dwell on that right now, and Ron returned it. Then he strode away, and Carwood stood watching as the mob swallowed him up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me over [here](http://whip-pan.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay between last chapter and this one! I hope you enjoy it all the same. Thanks to everyone who supported my little snippets/posts about this story on Tumblr in the interim, and a big thank you to theonceandfuturecaptain for all the enthusiastic hand-holding and edits on this chapter. It wouldn't be even half as good without her input <333

Before his car skidded off the road one February evening, spilling out brains and blood much in the same way an 88 might, Carwood’s father had sold Fords. He’d started out as a mechanic learning about engines after school, and when he’d been twenty two, still fixing cars to support his wife and baby, a salesman had listened to the way he spoke to customers and offered him a job. At the time he died, he had the best sales record at the dealership, and a shiny new Ford truck to prove it. 

That was the car Carwood expected to see when Robbie came to pick him up from the train station. They’d done their best, over the years, to keep it in the condition their father had left it. Touched up the nice blue paint, made sure the engine ran smoothly. But Robbie rolled up in a new Chrysler Town & Country, and Carwood couldn’t help but stand there and stare at it, at least until Robbie honked the car’s horn. “Get in already, Ma’s been hovering by the door for hours,” he called, sticking his neck out the window. 

Carwood threw his duffel in the back of the car and slid into the passenger seat. Absurdly, before anything else, before asking after Ma or telling Robbie how good it was to see him, he said, “Do you still have Dad’s truck?”

Robbie looked over before he backed out of his parking space. “Yeah, of course. Why?”

“Just thought you’d be driving it.” 

Carwood had learned to drive that truck at fourteen from Mr. Rourke, who’d lived down the street and helped Carwood clean out the boardinghouse gutters every season. Later, when Carwood could drive legally, he’d taught Robbie how, in an old field half an hour out of town, both of them collapsing into full-bodied laughter when Robbie jerked the car back and forth in his efforts to learn how to break properly. It had been the truck Carwood’d driven to school, then to the university, then to the factory that he’d worked at before he’d joined up. 

“You can have it. This,” Robbie said, patting the dashboard, “is more of a family car.”

Carwood hadn’t been asking for it specifically, but as soon as Robbie said it, he realized that he wanted the truck and was glad Robbie didn’t seem to share any of his sentimentality for it. 

“Family car?” he asked. “Feels like you’ve barely had an engagement.”

“The wedding’s in a week.” 

“A week?”

“We didn’t want to wait,” Robbie said, and finally there was some of the boyish flush that Carwood remembered from before the war. Robbie had been just a kid when he’d left, not anywhere near the man he was now. Those things were all part of this new Robbie, not the one with whom Carwood had wrestled on the living room floor and caught frogs from the creek behind the high school. Not the dumbass kid he’d made firecrackers with on sticky June afternoons, stockpiling for the Fourth, the one day of the year their Ma didn’t scold them for setting them off in the backyard. Carwood couldn’t imagine Robbie and his fiancée planning for a baby, yet here they were. 

“I’ll have to meet Beatrice,” he said. 

“She’s so excited to finally get to know you,” Robbie said, his smile wide.  But then he caught himself, looking over at Carwood guiltily before putting his eyes to the road. “Sorry about what happened with Margaret.”

“Don’t be.”

“Ma’s pretty broken up about it.”

“She’s the only one,” he said, looking out the window at the houses he’d once known by sight, all of it blended in a thirty-mile-per-hour blur. If only he could avoid her forever and forget the whole thing ever happened. 

“Christ, Car,” Robbie said. He shifted in his seat awkwardly and didn’t say anything more until Carwood asked how he was enjoying his time on the police force so far. 

When they finally pulled up to the house, it was just as Carwood remembered it: wooden siding painted a creamy white, deep green shutters, a wraparound porch that called out for a sunny summer day and a pitcher of sweet tea. Carwood slammed the Chrysler’s door shut, feeling a smile on his face so wide he thought it might get stuck that way. He bounded up the drive and the porch steps two at a time and just when he’d reached the door, it swung open, revealing June Lipton. Carwood bent down to embrace her, and as he listened to her slightly hysterical exclamation of his name, squeezed his eyes shut to guard against tears. 

****

He supposed that he had been in love with her once. 

It seemed ridiculous to think that a person could be the only one you thought about for ages, and then before you even recognized that it happened, become someone you never even thought about at all. At Toccoa, he had been heartsick, writing letters to Margaret practically every evening. He’d think about what she was up to while he was training, whether she was helping with the boarders or teaching piano. What dress she was wearing. The lilac one with the lace on the hem? The blue one with the tie-up back that he always had to help her with? Was she wearing her cross under her dress or over it? He craved not only the materiality of her but her mannerisms, the way she flushed when he called her Peggy, how she talked with her hands when she got excited, how she’d swing her legs back and forth on the porch while she read  _ Life _ . 

It was reassuring to know that genuine love had been there. He felt, looking at the bed that he’d shared with her only a few times, a sort of residual fondness. Somehow the war had made her slip away, but she had been there. 

The loss had opened a hole for Ron to fit into, and now all he wanted was him in his childhood bedroom. Ron sitting on the window seat and smoking, or else at his desk with his feet up to read a novel. Ron wrestling with him, kissing them both breathless once he’d conceded the match. Ron tucked under his arm in bed while while the sun rose in every season. Autumn, if he were here now, with the tree that Carwood used to climb turning a brilliant lemony yellow outside the window. Margaret had surely done something similar at one point or another, made herself small against Carwood’s side while she cut recipes out of the newspaper. Hey honey, she’d say, what do you think about green beans with dinner tonight? 

Carwood made his way downstairs once he’d finished making his bed, military-smooth in a way he didn’t think he’d ever shake. His heart was aching, although he realized it in degrees; he got to the foot of the stairs and wished Ron was walking alongside him. 

It was going to be hard not to resent the military for keeping him across the Atlantic. 

“Carwood,” June said. “Good morning, sweetie.” She was at the kitchen table doing a crossword. Carwood smelled her cranberry tea, which lifted his mood somewhat; she hadn’t changed much. 

“Ma.” He kissed her on the cheek before fixing himself a cup of coffee. 

The night before had been the homecoming he’d been dreaming about. June and Robbie and Beatrice, who was a nice girl, someone who’d certainly be good for Robbie, all the boarders, most of whom were new, together for a homecooked meal. No one asked him about the war or his wife, likely out of politeness, and he was glad for it. He’d felt like he had before he’d enlisted, comfortably ensconced in helping June with the workings of the boardinghouse, teasing his brother, settling down for bed in his room at the top of the stairs. Morning had brought along his anxieties about Margaret and aching for Ron, but the night before had been blessedly free of anything but a satisfaction he hadn’t known for years. 

He sat down at the table next to her, fishing his carton of Lucky Strikes out of his breast pocket, but caught himself just as June said, “A cigarette, really?”

He felt hot around the ears as he shoved the carton out of sight. “It was hard not to pick up the habit over there.”

She sighed. “If you must, go outside. You know I don’t let the boarders smoke indoors either.” 

“Yes ma’am.” He took a gulp of coffee, unable to meet her gaze for a second. 

“Do you want anything for breakfast?”

It seemed crazy that he could have practically anything he wanted, not whatever chow the Army happened to be serving. “Do we have any cornflakes?” 

That made his Ma laugh. “You come back from Europe and all you want is some cereal?” 

“It wasn’t like I had it over there.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to make you eggs?”

He shook his head, feeling silly but ignoring it. Now he really was in the mood for cornflakes. 

“There’s some in the cabinet where we usually keep it,” June said. She put her hand on his before he got up, squeezing his fingers. The smile she gave him put a lump in his throat. 

“Is Robbie really having the wedding in a week?” he asked as he poured his cereal, more to change the subject than anything. He didn’t much want to talk about the war with his mother. 

“They’ve been waiting awhile,” June said. “Robbie wants you there, of course, but he’s been getting antsy.”

“Beatrice seems like a nice gal.”

“She’s been wonderful help around the house. I’m looking forward to getting to call her my daughter-in-law.”

It was curious, the prospect of having a sister-in-law. “I can’t believe it,” he admitted. 

“What?”

“They were kids when I saw them last.”

“You’re still that kid too,” she said softly. 

“Ma-”

“Don’t you remember what it was like, getting married? You were so excited you were beside yourself.”

“Peggy and I aren’t getting back together.”

“Won’t you consider it? No marriage is unsalvageable. I know she hurt you-”

“This one is.”

“You’re still her husband.”

“She doesn’t want me to be anymore, clearly.” Carwood resisted the urge to say more. Nothing good would come of it. June had drawn her own conclusions, and while he wouldn’t normally allow himself lie by omission, the truth would get him into worse shape. 

“Well, consider it when you see her at the wedding.”

Carwood swallowed an overly large mouthful of cornflakes. “She’s coming to the wedding?”    

****

_ Carwood,  _

_ I suspect that this letter will be waiting for you in Huntington when you arrive, so let me be the first to say it: welcome home. I hope it’s as you remembered it, and that your family is well.  _

_ Easy has moved to France. We’re still processing men who are leaving, but we’re also rooting out Nazi sympathizers. I can’t go into detail, but I finally went out into the field again, and I hadn’t felt so exhilarated in a long time. Most of the original Easy Co. men have managed to work up the required points to be discharged - you wouldn’t recognize the company, although of course that’s a blessing - yet somehow I managed to get stuck with Webster. He’s still a few points short. He thinks that since we both hail from Boston, we have a lot to talk about. It turns out that our fathers know each other distantly, and now he’s insisting on putting together a dinner sometime when we’re stateside. He doesn’t know, but if that happens, I’m dragging you along with me.  _

_ Enclosed is the address of my father’s friend. Send your application to him directly, he already knows who you are. I wrote your letter of recommendation, cosigned by my father. He should be getting it any day now. I wouldn’t worry at all about it; it seems that he’s quite excited at the prospect of adding a distinguished veteran to his program.  _

_ The colder it gets, the more fondly I remember our summertime lazing about in Austria.  _

_ -Cpt. Ron Speirs    _

****

His own wedding had been a rushed ceremony one weekend Easy had actually been allowed to skip base. Most of the boys had gone to the nearby towns to dance with girls and catch the latest movies, but he’d made Margaret his wife. It would’ve felt like a shotgun wedding - barely anyone in attendance, Margaret in her flowery church dress - but for the fact he wore his uniform and that she clearly wasn’t in the family way. 

They’d already slept together a few times. In his truck, her skirt shoved up her thighs, his touch tender only because he didn’t have any fucking clue what he ought to be doing. Once in her pink bedroom with the white furniture set, completely bare before each other. It wasn’t exactly new on their wedding night, but it certainly felt different. They’d taken care to use rubbers before, for one. And those times had skirted the edge of scandalousness; if he didn’t feel any particular communion with God, surely his Ma would mind if she knew. 

That night, after he’d come inside her, he’d held her in his arms, his back against his sturdy headboard. Her dark hair smelled like oranges, still in curls from the ceremony earlier.

“Carwood,” she said, ending it on a sigh. His fingers were tracing up and down between her legs. 

“What is it?” he asked. He kissed the top of her head. She took her hand in his and moved them up to her belly. 

“Do you want a girl or a boy?” she asked. 

“You’re not-”

“No,” she laughed. “But maybe you did, just now. That’d be nice.”

“But then I won’t be able to see you during it,” he protested. He thought of her in her nightgown, the gauzy one with the violet lace, only with a round belly. She’d look good like that, he decided. 

“Sweetheart,” she said, looking up at him, “that’s the whole point. You don’t want to see me when I’m fat.”

“You’ll still be beautiful.”

“Gosh, no. Babies ruin your figure, in my family especially. Which is why we’re only having one.”

“Not two?”

“Maybe,” she said. “If I get pregnant this time, maybe.”

He’d been imagining two or more, all with the dark hair he loved so much. He flipped them around, so she was on her back, him hovering over her. 

“What are you doing?” she said, but instead of answering, he kissed her. 

“Let’s try again right now.” He’d put his mouth on her breasts, liking how she’d smoothed her palms across his shoulders, and ground up against her hip. They’d stayed more or less awake all night, and she’d kissed him through the window on the train when he went back to base in the morning.

He supposed it was natural to think about memories like that at a wedding. The further the war had gone on, the less he’d thought of her. He’d been erring on the side of not at all when she’d sent him that letter, so to see her again, in a lovely pink dress and heels, was more of a startle than it probably ought to have been.

He tried very hard to keep his eyes off her during the ceremony, and he nearly managed, except a man he’d never seen before was sitting next to her, an arm flung across the pew to urge her closer. He was easy to dislike, with his dumb mustache and crooked tie, and Carwood found himself stiffening whenever his eyes wandered over. He had the slouch of someone who hadn't served, Carwood decided. 

He resolved to keep to himself at the reception. He belonged at the family table, after all. It was a proper wedding party, very different from his own. The Depression had hung around his, specter-like, coloring the food and the limp decorations, but this one was flush with the contented prosperity that he’d been noticing all over town the past week. Not that he minded; his wedding hadn’t ended up being a lick close to permanent, but Robbie looked at Beatrice like Ron sometimes looked at him. 

He’d gone to get himself another glass of punch when she caught him. 

Margaret was a very persistent woman, so he knew immediately that if she wanted to talk to him, then they were going to talk. Back then, he’d have called her tenacity a strength, but now it gave her a predatory edge. She gripped his forearm tightly, actually had the nerve to do that with her boyfriend standing next to her, wheeled him around and said his name. 

“Margaret,” he said. She was wearing the same perfume she'd had when they’d been dating. He’d liked the smell, had told her so often. The thought that her new lover might feel the same way made him stiffen. Of course it was ridiculous; he had no more claim to her anymore than she to him. And yet. 

“This is Gerard,” she said, after a slight pause. 

“Hello,” Carwood said, shaking Gerard’s hand. It pained him to be so polite, especially when he noticed how smooth Gerard’s hands were. 

“How have you been?” Margaret said.

“I’m still getting used to being back.”

“It must be strange.”

“No stranger than it was being over there.” Carwood shrugged. He noticed June watching him, and that more than anything made him add, “The court’s set for  next Tuesday, right?”

“Carwood-”

“Just wanted to make sure it hadn’t changed. Wouldn’t want to slow down your wedding plans.”

Margaret gave Gerard a quick glance, flushing. “That’s - we’re not-”

“You don’t have to lie,” he said. He felt weary, the sort of weariness that had sometimes overtaken him in Bastogne, when he’d been too fed up to do anything but shiver and look at the stars winking between the treetops. He’d been wound tight as a spring in his foxhole each long night, straining to hear signs of the next attack. Of course, Margaret and Gerard weren’t Germans, and their divorce could hardly be called trench warfare. If anything it was more like the way Easy’d taken The Eagle’s Nest - steadily marching towards in its direction, and then storming it when it became more than a mirage on the horizon. Who knew where they’d have ended up had there not been a war, but Carwood knew, the same way he knew he loved Ron as greedily as it got, that Gerard had slipped to one knee at some point or another and asked Margaret to be his wife.  

“Well, you don’t have to either,” Margaret said, her voice embarrassingly loud. June looked over at them, trying to catch Carwood’s eyes, but shame welled up in him so strong he couldn’t manage it; he looked at Margaret’s throat, wondering if the way she spoke had always been so annoying, or if he was just noticing it now. 

“I was faithful to you,” he said. “I wrote you all the time. And you send me the divorce papers in the mail? You bring your boyfriend to my brother’s fucking wedding? Christ, Peggy.”

Her cheeks were even ruddier. She stole a look at Gerard, who squeezed her shoulder, and a quick one at June before crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. “I don’t believe you.” 

“What?” 

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you stayed faithful.”

“I-”

“All the other girls, Carwood, their boys stopped writing, or didn’t write nearly enough, but you always wrote. You wrote until you stopped.” 

Carwood flushed, acutely aware that now everyone was looking at them, corner or no. There was no pretending they were merely catching up. He felt like he might throw up, longing for the terrifying disorientation than came from airplane jumps, the anxious thump of his heart in his chest when running into battle, anything he’d have a shot at beating. Maybe somehow being with Ron had branded him as queer, tattooed him up good and visible, and now she and everyone knew without him ever mentioning it. 

He had never felt particularly murderous, not even when it came to the Krauts, so the amount of it effort it took him not to strike her right then shocked him. He balled his hands in his jacket pockets forcefully. As though she knew what he was thinking, she shrunk into the hook of Gerard’s arm. That only made the itch worse. He wanted her crying, wanted her voice to break with shock. 

Margaret took a deep breath. Her voice was icy as she continued, “January, in case you were wondering. You stopped writing me regular in January.”

“I had pneumonia.” He hadn't mentioned that in any of his letters, never thought to tell Margaret or his mother especially. 

“For eight months?”

“You shouldn’t have gone and left me.” 

“You shouldn’t have made me want to, then!”

“When’d you meet?” he asked Gerard.

"You leave him alone." Margaret stepped in front. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.” 

“You put him right in the middle when you brought him here.” 

“Who were you with, then?” 

“No one.”

“Bullshit.” Margaret lit a cigarette with shaking fingers. “That’s a lie and you know it.”

Carwood felt Robbie’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him backward. “Why don’t we get going?” 

"Sounds like a fine idea," Gerard said, thrusting his palm against Carwood's chest as he nudged Margaret behind him.

Carwood twisted around. "Robbie-"

"Really, you oughta go. All three of you." 

********

_ Ron, _

_ I nearly hit my wife tonight.  _

Carwood stared down at the paper. He clutched his pen so tight the tip tore through it - good thing he couldn’t send this anyway. The guilt was a brick through a window after a threat. Of course he was feeling it, how couldn’t he? Wanting to shake Peggy until she slunk away with her tail between her legs. Men didn’t treat women that way. 

He was paranoid, but surely his paranoia was well-founded. He couldn’t imagine the consequences of being accused of sodomy, let alone actually being charged and sentenced. Margaret hadn’t been trying to force that particular confession out of him, but she’d come close enough. 

Close enough to hit. Nearly hit. 

Ron would disapprove. He might’ve had unusual opinions on some things, which Carwood didn’t always agree with, but he’d agree that a lady is a lady, and that when men didn’t treat them as such, they were on the road to ruin. 

“Carwood,” his mother called from the bottom of the stairs. 

It had been a mean thing to do, leaving her on the first floor while he scrambled up to the second, hidden away in his room like he used to do as a boy when he didn’t want to talk. But she couldn’t get up the stairs unless someone carried her, and he hadn’t been able to bear to face her like this. 

But prolonging the inevitable would only make it worse, so he opened his door, crumpling up the letter into his pocket. He didn’t say anything, couldn’t, really, but then she said, “Come downstairs,” and he wasn’t enough of a bastard to ignore her then. 

“Robbie back?” he asked. 

“He’s spending the weekend with Beatrice, remember? Driving to Washington for their honeymoon.”

She had her arms crossed over her chest, still in the sky blue dress she wore to the wedding. There was a clipped quality to her tone that Carwood didn’t want to examine, but all the same he followed as she wheeled into the kitchen and fixed them both cups of coffee. 

“Margaret shouldn’t have brought her new beau to the wedding,” she began, once she’d spooned sugar into both their glasses, never mind that Carwood tended to take it with just a bit of milk. 

“Right,” Carwood said, relieved. “She was acting-”

“But you shouldn’t have treated her this way.”

“Ma.”

“And during your brother’s wedding, too.”

“Why did she even come?” Carwood asked, looking down into his mug. It had a chip on the edge that he didn’t remember seeing before. 

“Her mother and I are still good friends,” June said stiffly. “Although I expect things will be cool next knitting circle, given the disgraceful way that Margaret conducted herself. Accusing you of being unfaithful.”

Carwood drank a big gulp of coffee. It was too hot without the milk, but he couldn’t help but feel like he deserved, at the very least, the burnt tongue. As a boy he’d generally been well behaved and respectable. He never gave his Ma reason to think he’d be the type to be unfaithful to his girl, and especially not with a man. 

The guilt would eat him from the inside out if he didn’t tell her. 

“Ma,” he said carefully, but she talked over him. 

“I was about ready to break it up myself,” she said. “Good thing Robbie went over there. She could’ve had the courtesy to wait and tell you in person, instead of giving it to you in the mail. This isn’t the sort of thing that you tell someone in writing.”

“I cheated on her too.”

“What?”

“I cheated on her,” he said. 

She didn’t say anything long enough he started to fidget. He took another gulp of coffee, nearly spilling it down his chin. 

“Who was it with?” she finally asked. She was looking at the tablecloth. 

“Does it matter?”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” She looked at him, as though she was considering something, and then added, “Well, if you’ve both wronged each other, it sounds like it’ll be easier to get past.”

He didn’t say anything.  

“A marriage is a big thing to throw away. I never would’ve never wanted to lose that connection with your father, sweetie.”

“I know that. But you and Dad… you were in love in a different way.” 

“Are you saying you didn’t love her?”

If he could just shut his eyes awhile, that’d be preferable. Eventually, because he had to tell her sometime and, in comparison, it seemed like the easier conversation, he said, "I'm moving to Boston."

“What’s in Boston?”

He couldn’t say for certain, he’d never been to Boston. He could, perhaps in some other reality, a world where it didn’t matter if two men wanted to stick together, tell her his lover was there. That he was in Europe still but coming back and they had plans to get an apartment. Instead he said, “A friend of mine from the Army offered me a place to stay. He was my CO, actually, he’s helping me transfer to MIT. His father is an engineer.”

“MIT? What’s wrong with Marshall?”

“MIT’s a better school, Ma, especially for engineering.”

“And it’s hours and hours away. You just got home.”

“I know.” The week had slipped through his fingers. It had felt foreign, like he was in enemy territory without his map or rifle, and yet that shouldn’t have been the case; he knew these streets well, tore through them all as a boy all the time. He’d gone to the grocery store for his Ma on Tuesday and ended up standing at the neat stacks of canned vegetables and soup stock and the towering pyramid of apples screaming that they were 6 cents to a pound until some woman with a wailing baby asked if he was alright. He’d made it not two feet further before his high school physics teacher started up a conversation, stacking apples in his basket like he was stockpiling grenades. He’d wanted to shrink into the corner and see if he couldn’t ask one of the check-out boys to go through the grocery list for him, but that seemed pathetic even in his head, so he did his best, fighting a headache the whole way, and then went straight home to go lay down in front of the fireplace. He hadn’t realized until Ma started cooking dinner with Beatrice that night that he’d forgotten the eggs and butter. 

“Then why do you want to up and leave again?”

“This is a really good opportunity. The GI Bill will cover tuition. I may as well take advantage of it.”

“Couldn’t you transfer to another university closer by?”

Carwood shook his head. 

His mother sighed. “When will you be going?”

“Not sure yet. I sent in my application, and then I need to wait to see when my friend gets back from Europe.”

“What’s this friend like?”

“He’s a good guy. A great commander. He wants to meet you all.”

“He’s from Boston?”

“Yes, Ma.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Margaret, does it?”

Carwood shook his head again, but his mother just pursed her lips. “You were so in love,” she started, but then she stopped and didn’t continue. 

****

_ Dear Ron,  _

_ How’re things in Europe? All’s well here. I visited the Registrar at Marshall, got my transcripts in order, so they ought to be on their way to MIT right now. Broke the news to my mother, she’s not too happy.  _

_ Robbie’s wedding was well attended. Some of my high school friends came, and they all had their own war stories - I think you’d be interested to hear some of them, especially those that went to the Pacific. Unfortunately Peggy brought along her new boyfriend. It’s strange how little she means to me now. I think I expected to feel something more. I’m hoping I won’t run into her again now that the divorce papers are signed, but it’s easy to cross paths in this neighborhood.  _

_ Also strange is how much it feels like I missed. It’s hard to talk to folks because they always seem to want something from me, but I can’t figure out what. I guess they want war stories, but what’s there to say? Anything I tried to talk about I wouldn’t be able to explain, anyway. Although I suppose I could tell them about you at Foy. I dreamt about that the other night, the way you looked when you climbed back across that wall. It made me smile so hard my mouth hurt - when it happened, and in the dream, too.  _

_ But anyway, how’s William? Elise must have her hands full now that he’s figured out how to run. You ought to see if she can send you another picture.  _

_ Stay safe, and stay warm.  _

_ Best, _

_ C. Carwood Lipton _

****

On the first truly cold day of the year, Carwood rose early, planning to rake up the last of the autumn leaves and check that all the windows locked. He’d expected to find the house quiet, but Robbie was already out front with a rake. He breathed into his palms, rubbing them together, before walking down the steps and the walkway.  

“Morning,” Robbie said, when Carwood joined him. 

“You’re up early, boy,” Carwood said. “Didn’t you have a night shift?”

Robbie shrugged. “Figured I’d get this done, then sleep after. Beatrice has a hair appointment anyway, takes half the morning.”

“Do you need any help?” 

“Sure.”

Carwood carried the leaves Robbie had raked to the bed of his truck; he’d take them down to the wooded ravine a few blocks away later in the day. They worked in companionable silence like that while the world woke up around them until Carwood caught Robbie yawning. “Why don’t you go get some sleep?” he asked. The yard was half-finished anyway. 

Robbie shook his head. “It’s alright, I promised Ma I would do it.”

Things had been cool between Carwood and June for only a few days before June had ventured, “What kinds of courses will you be taking at MIT?” He’d known he was really forgiven when she’d said, “My friend Lucy’s son went up to Boston on a football scholarship last year,” and had asked for more details about Ron, although the jury was still out on whether he deserved it. 

“She could’ve gotten me to do it instead.” 

“It’s alright. I’ve been doing the chores just fine for awhile now.”

“But now that I’m around, I can help.”

“But soon you’ll be back at school. Ma told me you want to move to Boston.” Robbie must’ve seen something in Carwood’s face, because he added, “It’s grand up there, I’m sure you’ll like it. But really, we’re fine here. Have been since you joined up.”

“You know I had to go, right?”

“I would’ve given you hell if you hadn’t.” Robbie smiled, propping himself up with the rake. “I’m no kid anymore, Carwood. I’m doing good around here. I like it. You go be a fancy engineer. Make lots of money, impress your new wife.”

“I guess I ought’ve known.” Carwood reached out and squeezed Robbie’s shoulder, smiling at him. Robbie returned it, ducking his head down. 

“Say, you ever gonna tell me those stories?”

“What stories?”

“War stories. You must have lots.”

Something cold slid into Carwood’s stomach. “Well, it was just as I said in my letters.”

Robbie scoffed. “Come on, you know what I mean. The ones you won’t tell Ma.”

The fear Sobel would get them all shot in Germany somewhere. The jump, how he landed on his ass to the sound of gunfire choking the air. Wounded. The antiseptic smell of the hospital. Masturbating after the nurse left, just to see if his cock still worked properly, the little skin she’d shown at the neckline enough to get him going. The good stuff, Luz’s jokes and the smooth crawl of Doc’s accent and the reassurance of seeing Winters’ copper-colored hair once he took his helmet off after the action had stopped. The slow frustration that’d consumed him during Bastogne the longer Dike wandered around with his eyes shut, hands over his ears, and the longer he had to sleep in a hole and shit in one, too. Fluid in his lungs, Ron sitting terrified by his bedside. Landsberg. How it had made Ron cry. The night that private shot Grant and he’d wondered if he’d have to keep Ron from doing violence. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “There’s not much to say.” 

“There’s gotta be something,” Robbie wheedled. “Please? Were the European chicks cute, at least?”

“Maybe some other time,” Carwood said. He turned and went back into the house. 

He wrote Ron a letter. He’d woken up so early because he had a nightmare, and going to do chores had been an attempt at shaking off his lingering unease. It was something about D-Day, about meeting up with Ron in the forest, although they’d never done that. 

****

The day Ron’s train was set to get in, Carwood woke up an hour before dawn. He went through the motions of getting ready for the day even though the whole house was quiet, changing his shirt three times after his shower before he realized that he was being ridiculous and settled on the first one he’d grabbed out of his closet. Robbie stumbled downstairs around seven, found him looking out the front window at the empty street, a mug of coffee in his hand. He couldn’t go a minute without grinning. This was his second cup of coffee, not because he needed it, but because he didn’t want to broadcast his eagerness to the household.

“When’s your friend getting in again?” Robbie asked. 

“Around noon,” Carwood said. “I’ll probably take him to lunch before bringing him home, if he’s up for it. He’ll be hungry.”

“He’s a captain, right?”

“He lead my company towards the end of the war.”

“Wow,” Robbie said. “Do we have to call him Captain Speirs?”

“Ron’ll do, I’m sure,” Carwood said, although he felt something akin to pride at hearing Ron’s rank. It reminded him of the days when he’d called him sir.   

“Are you really moving up to Boston with him?” Robbie said this without looking at Carwood, instead picking at a hole in his sweater. He caught the hesitancy in his voice with some surprise; Robbie hadn’t seemed to care much about his plans, aside from his endorsement a few months ago. He had plenty going on in his own life to worry about, what with getting used to his job and marriage. 

“Yeah.” Carwood  looked into his coffee mug, but didn’t take a sip. “You still okay with that?”

“Boston’s far away.”

“It’s not California. Or Europe.” 

“Guess so,” Robbie said. “It’s just - Ma. She’s still upset.” He bit his lip, sneaking a look at Carwood. “Just so you know. She thinks you’re running away from Margaret.”

It was just as well that that’s what she thought. It pained Carwood to think it, but it made everything much simpler. “This is an opportunity,” he said, after a pause. “You know MIT’s a good school.”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t go,” Robbie said. “I just wanted you to know what she thinks.”

“I need to go,” Carwood said. “I’ve thought about it, and I do. I really do.”

Robbie nodded. “Alright, then. It’s not that she doesn’t want you to, she’s just… well, you know she wishes you and Margaret had stayed married.”

“Do you?”

Robbie shrugged, gaze cast down to the floorboards. “It’s your life.”

“Robbie.”

“Of course we’d all rather you don’t move to a whole different part of the goddamn country,” Robbie said. “But then again, Ma didn’t want me to be a police officer, and I went ahead and did it anyway.”

“Huntington’s not a bad place for a cop.”

“That’s what I told her!” Robbie exclaimed. 

Carwood grinned. “Much better than Boston.”

“Better not let her hear you talking like that, she’ll start praying for your soul.”

“Ma ain't prayed since the accident.”

“Well, she got going again when she had to think about her eldest taking on Hitler." Robbie clapped Carwood on the shoulder. "Say, do you think Ron'll tell us all the war stories you've been hoarding?" 

****

Carwood went through three cigarettes, smoking quickly in his anticipation, before Ron’s train arrived. Staying by his truck was tortuous. Up ahead, a man embraced a woman in a long fur coat, dipped her down and kissed her like that photograph of the sailor and the nurse everyone had seen in the papers. If he could, he’d greet Ron like that. He deserved nothing less. 

Finally Ron appeared on the platform. Carwood watched as he ground out his cigarette and scanned the parking lot. He raised his hand, but it wasn’t necessary; Ron had already started toward him. 

“I’ve missed you,” Ron said as soon as he’d reached Carwood and pulled him close. Carwood smelled his aftershave and some sort of clean shampoo as he hugged back, trying to keep it quick, but lingering anyway. Ron looked just as he remembered him, the same walk, the same eyes and neatly combed hair, yet relaxed in a way Carwood had never seen in Europe. He looked soft in his green sweater and overcoat. Like he’d been declawed. Carwood realized that this was the first time he’d ever seen him in civilian clothes. Ron knew this too, if the way his gaze lingered when they pulled apart was any indication. He seemed satisfied with what he found, because he favored Carwood with a small smile. 

Carwood felt a jolt go through him at that smile. “I’ve missed you too,” he said. The letters had been something, but in retrospect nowhere near enough, not when he had Ron standing before him in the flesh. “September feels very far away. How was the trip down?”

“Just fine,” Ron said. “I’ve been rereading the early Hemingway novels.” He held up a paperback copy of  _ A Farewell to Arms _ . Carwood saw a bookmark in the back, just a scrap of paper, and the way the spine was bent until the glue cracked, and felt fondness so strong it took all of his willpower not to kiss him right there. 

“How’s your family?” he asked instead, leading the way to the car. 

“Practically as I left them,” Ron said as he chucked his suitcase into the backseat. He slammed the door shut. “Although I did learn something.”

“What?” Carwood said, when Ron didn’t seem to want to continue. 

He didn’t answer until Carwood had started up the car and backed out of the parking space. “Fiona’s been trying to have a baby. The whole time I was away, practically. I didn’t know.”

“Is she pregnant?”

“She just had her third miscarriage,” Ron said. Carwood glanced over at him, noting subdued tone of his voice. “Right before Christmas.” 

“Christ. Is she alright?”

“She’s not hurt.” Ron lit another cigarette, cranking down the window to blow the smoke out, which had the unfortunate effect of blasting cold air into the cab. 

“Ron,” Carwood chided. “We’ll both get sick.”

“The pneumonia hasn’t come back, has it?” Ron asked as he hurried to get the window back up. 

“I’m fine.”

“Good.”

“But your sister-”

“It’s just a mess. Her husband’s specialty is obstetrics, so the whole thing has been very embarrassing for them.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m glad to be away from it for awhile.”

Carwood hesitated before speaking, but figured it’d be better to bring it up now, so it’d be out in the open. “My mother isn’t too keen on me moving to Boston.”

“That so?” Ron said, after a moment.

“It’s okay,” Carwood hurried to add. He made a left, clutching the wheel a little tighter than necessary. “I’m still going. I’m just letting you know.”

Ron reached across and touched his shoulder briefly. “I signed the lease on our apartment and moved everything in,” he said. “I think you’re going to like it. Our bedroom has these big eastward facing windows. Should be nice during the morning.”

Eastward facing windows in the bedroom. Somehow the detail made it much more real. He had a place to stay in Boston, one with a bedroom that would fill with light on sunny mornings. Ron seemed to understand, so he described the rest of it over lunch: the spare bedroom that they’d technically need to keep up, the living room with its well-kept fireplace, the hardwood floors that, in his estimation, were very sound. 

****

When they arrived home, they found everyone in the kitchen. Beatrice and June were preparing for dinner while Robbie and one of the boarders, a visiting Marshall University professor, discussed the upcoming baseball season. Spring training had started up for most teams, and the rest would catch up once March took February’s place. Carwood clapped Ron on the shoulder, feeling strangely nervous, and introduced him with his rank. 

“You can call me Ron, though,” Ron said. Robbie and Professor Fairchild stood to shake his hand. 

He gamely received kisses on the cheek from Beatrice and June, the latter of whom said, “You must be exhausted from the trip, Boston’s so far north. Can we get you anything?”

“No thank you, Carwood already treated me to lunch,” Ron said. 

“Sweetie, why don’t you take him upstairs, show him where he’s staying?” June said to Carwood. To Ron, she added, “The boardinghouse is full right now, so we can’t give you your own room, I’m sorry.”

Ron waved away her apology. “It means you’re doing good business. Should I take the couch?”

“Absolutely not,” June said. “I’d much prefer if you stayed with Carwood. If you won’t be too cramped, that is.”

“Any bed is heaven compared to what we’re used to,” Ron said. “I’m sure Carwood’s told you about that.”

“A little,” she said. “We’re happy you’re here.”

“Thank you for having me.” Ron let Carwood steer him out of the kitchen. In the hallway, he smirked at the way Carwood was pressing his palm into his lower back. Carwood ducked his head, refusing to acknowledge his eagerness further. Seeing Ron in the same space as his family had gone smoother than expected, backwards comment about the trip down from Boston aside, but he wanted him alone. 

Once they were safely tucked away in his bedroom, he said, “I’m sorry about that.”

He’d never seen Ron in any domestic locale before, save German houses barely hanging onto their dignity and Elise’s home. Ron fit in better than he’d thought he’d might, save the inevitable awkwardness of introductions. This new softness to him was still lingering.

“They all seem nice.” Ron shrugged. “I don’t want to risk being rude.”

“But we haven’t even gotten to kiss yet,” Carwood said. He colored when the petulant tone of his voice hit him, but Ron just pulled him in, hands around his waist, and kissed him deeply. He relaxed into it, wrapping Ron into a hug. Ron walked them backwards onto the bed so he was sitting, Carwood trapped between his legs. 

Carwood looked down at him, running his fingers through his hair. “I’m glad you’re safe.” He swallowed. Ron had spent nearly half a year longer than him at war, but now he was here, real and warm to the touch. 

“Me too,” Ron said. He curled his fingers in the belt loops of Carwood’s pants. “I’m glad you haven’t changed your mind.”

“I haven’t thought of anything else since I got back,” Carwood confessed. Ron blinked, as though startled by his sincerity, and tugged him down into a breathless kiss. 

****

That evening found them curled up together. They touched with a lazing sort of wonder, searching for the scars and the birthmarks, kissing until their lips felt pleasantly buzzed. Ron had a set of hunter green pajamas that reminded Carwood of their uniforms. He reached for the buttons on those pajamas, wanting to see the skin beneath, but stopped himself. 

“No?” Ron asked. 

“Not now,” he said regretfully. 

Ron nodded, rolling into his arms. “You smell nice.”

“What?” He held Ron against his chest, rubbing his back. Ron had his face pressed into his shoulder. 

“Whatever you have on. It’s good.” Ron kissed his shoulder. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Carwood said in amusement. “Better now that you’re here.”

“Things alright with Margaret?”

“We haven’t really been speaking.”

“Well, there's no law that says you have to speak with your ex-wife."

"We used to be real close. Asked her out the old fashioned way, ice cream for our first date."

"You never asked me out for ice cream."

Carwood felt fit to burst from fondness. "You don't ask a fella out for a root beer float,” he said.

"I like strawberry ice cream," Ron said. "There's this place in Boston - Bailey's - I think you'll like. I'll take you when we get up there."

"I'm a fan of chocolate chip," Carwood said.

"You and my sister are gonna get along, then." Ron drifted his hand down to the waistband of Carwood's pants, stroking over the outline of his cock. 

Carwood felt the first warm pangs of arousal and gently took Ron's hand away, saying, "Not now, honey." He rolled them over, so Ron was underneath him, appreciating the tousle of Ron’s  hair and the way his eyes widened when he processed the pet name. 

“I have to tell you something,” he said. His chest was starting to ache from the satisfied way Ron was looking at him. 

Ron didn’t react, just stayed as he was, unblinking. But his body grew tense. 

“With Margaret.” Carwood fingered the collar of Ron’s pajamas, unable to look him in the eyes. “At the wedding-”

“You slept with her,” Ron supplied.

“I - No, of course not.” Carwood shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that to you. Or her. It wouldn’t be fair to either one of you.”

“But you wanted to.”

“No.” Carwood laughed tonelessly. “No, the attraction is gone. I wanted to hit her.”

Ron sat up on his elbows. “Well, did you?”

“At my brother’s wedding?”

“I punched one of Ellie’s suitors last week.”

“What? Why?”

“He tried to cop a feel at the movies. Did you hit her?”

“No.”

Ron sat back, looking at the ceiling. “Good. I know you would’ve regretted it.” 

Christ, Carwood thought, it would have been a nightmare. “I’m no better than her,” he ventured.

“You fell in love accidentally. She chose to cheat on you.”

“Not sure that’s how it works.”

“You don’t regret this, do you?”

“God no.” Carwood took Ron’s hand and squeezed it. 

“Then what’s the problem? You have someone, she has someone, there’s no kid to worry about.”

He made it sound so neat. A mission executed to the letter.  

“I thought - well, I thought she was the direction my life was going in.” Carwood flushed. “Did you ever feel that way with Arthur?”

“No,” Ron said. “We were lovers, sure, but not always partners in the way a man expects to be with his wife.”

“I don’t feel right here anymore,” Carwood confessed. 

“Well,” Ron said, pulling him into his arms, his chin on the top of his head, so that he heard the rumble when he spoke, “you have Boston to look forward to.”

****

“Your friend doesn’t talk much, does he?” June said. 

Carwood, on his way to fetch Ron from the back porch, where he was laying down in the snow to smoke, paused with his door on the handle. “That’s just how he is.”

“Your father was quiet like that. He’d sit and listen, and then suddenly come out and say something no one else would’ve thought of.” June took out her needlepoint, a half-finished pillowcase for the downstairs guest room, but didn’t do anything with it but smooth her hands over the pattern. “Of course Clifford wasn’t half as handsome.”

“Ma,” Carwood scolded.

She laughed, then waved her hand at Carwood. “Tell the captain to come inside before he catches his death of cold.”

“You never used to talk about Dad this much.” Carwood smiled at her, uncertain. As a boy, and even a young man, she’d been close-lipped whenever Carwood had a question about his father. Robbie hadn’t minded, given he’d been so young when the crash happened, but it’d gnawed at Carwood from time to time. He’d wanted to know the small, unimportant things, like which sports he liked to follow and where he got his haircuts. 

Her smile turned wistful. “You know he’d have been so proud of you, sweetie.”

When Ron came back downstairs, devoid of his coat and in a dry shirt, Carwood pressed a mug of coffee into his hands. He wished he could kiss him; the smoke on his breath was woodsy, and his stubble seemed just about the perfect length to rub his cheek against. 

“I’ll bet it snows even more in Boston,” June said, beckoning them to sit down at the kitchen table with her. 

“Once we couldn’t get the front door open,” Ron said. “My father had to dig a tunnel to get to his car.” He smiled at Carwood. “I remember being upset it happened on a Saturday. I’d been hoping for a snow day.”

“My goodness.”

“And there was a blizzard on Valentine’s Day my freshman year of university. Put a damper on my date, although we still managed to have fun.” 

“Speaking of dates, find Carwood a new girl, will you? I don’t want him to be lonely.” 

Carwood wished for a cigarette right about now; keeping his promise not to smoke in the house was harder than he’d thought it would be. “Ma,” he said, “I’m not going to be alone.”

“Female company,” she clarified. “It does men good, having women in their lives.”

Ron took a sip of coffee and set it down in the careful way of a man stalling for time. “I don’t know if I’m the best man for that job,” he said after a moment. “I’m divorced, myself.”

Her face fell. “I didn’t mean to pry,” she said. “Carwood hasn’t told us too much about you.”

He waved away her apology. “She’s English, still over there. There was a mixup with her old husband, that’s all.”

“No children, I hope.”

“My boy’s a year old now.” 

“You must miss him terribly.”

Ron worried his lip before answering, “More than you can know.” 

“I’m grateful that if anything’s come out of Carwood’s divorce, a broken home isn’t one of them.”

Carwood very much wanted to point out that she managed to insult him and their guest all at once, but Ron didn’t seem offended; if anything, he agreed. 

“You would have stayed with her, wouldn’t you? Without the mixup with the husband?”

“Probably not,” Ron said. “Our liaison was meant to be very casual.”

“Oh,” June said. A moment passed awkwardly as she realized that Ron had just wanted to roll around in the hay with the gal, but he’d managed to knock her up instead. 

****

In the end, Ron showed June his handful of photographs of William - in the bath, crawling, a blurry one of him running around a coffee table, solemnly looking at the photographer. There was one of him eating applesauce, most of it down his shirt, smiling gummily. He had a wonderful smile. Carwood wondered if Ron realized just how similar they looked, but thought it best not to bring it up. Even though he had met William, had held him in his arms, it still felt strange to think that Ron was a father. 

Eventually June excused herself to go to her knitting circle. A beat passed before Carwood realized that they were finally alone in the house, but before he could mention it, Ron turned his head towards his and kissed him. 

He’d never kissed a girl in his mother’s kitchen, much less a man. Ron. Ron’s lips were chapped. He tasted bitterly of black coffee and smokes. His broad palm laid flat over Carwood’s thigh, where inches away Carwood’s cock was swelling tight in his briefs. He moaned into Ron’s mouth; apparently this was all it took for him now. 

Somehow they made it up the stairs into his bedroom, kissing all the while. Ron kicked the door shut as soon as they made it through and wasted no time in pushing him up against the nearest wall, a hand spread out on his stomach. He held him in place, just looking him over, until Carwood’s skin prickled and he reached out to drag him closer. 

Ron huffed out a laugh against Carwood’s shoulder. “Look at you,” he said. He kissed Carwood deeply, pulling his shirt out of his pants, slipping his hand down to undo the button. He had a rough edge to his voice, the playfulness leaking out, replaced by something more serious. “Look at you.”

“Ron,” Carwood said, shuddering when Ron ran his hand over his cock. 

“We have an hour, right? It’s not like we’re going to last that long.” Ron grinned crookedly and leaned in kissed his neck, lightly so he didn’t leave any marks. Carwood gasped, urging Ron to press up against his crotch. Ron obliged, grinding against him with a determined sort of filthiness that Carwood might have chided him for under other circumstances. After a moment Ron huffed out a breath and unbuttoned his own pants. He spit into his palm, taking both of them together, half-hard but growing thicker.  

“I missed you,” Carwood said, dizzy with the furious pace Ron was setting. He bit his bottom lip hard to stave off a moan when Ron twisted his hand. 

“They asked me if I wanted to go to West Germany,” Ron mumbled into Carwood’s shoulder. He dragged his lips up Carwood’s face to his mouth and kissed it. “They wanted me in the American sector. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t, I had to see you.”

Carwood arched his back. He felt like an exclamation point, heart thudding tremendously. “You’re here,” he said. “You’re really here.”

Ron made a soft sound. He tugged on their cocks roughly This was what he’d been missing every time he’d beat off since coming home, Ron’s sharp smell, the way they fit together. He felt his face grow hot as Ron slipped his other hand down to fondle his balls. He moved a finger lower, over his perineum and his hole, once, so gently Carwood could’ve convinced himself he imagined it. But then he did it again, and that was what made Carwood come: the gentle dominance of it, the way, like always, Ron took and took, knowing that he could handle it. 

****

The day they were set to go to Boston was very cold and very bright. 

Carwood found a pair of old sunglasses in the glove compartment to wear later, when the sun got high and the snow made everything unbearable to look at for more than a few seconds. He was going to drive the first leg, up until around lunchtime. His mother had made them sandwiches for the road the night before. Now she gave them a thermos of coffee and two thick Coca-Cola bottles that Ron tucked into the bag by his feet in the passenger seat. 

June was in the driveway, and Beatrice and Robbie as well, plus the more intrepid of the boarders. “Drive safely,” she said, beckoning him into a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “My sweet boy.” 

He squeezed his eyes shut against her hair. Then he kissed Beatrice and told her to make sure she told him first thing when he was going to get to be an uncle.  

“Take care of Ma,” he told Robbie. He felt a twinge of selfishness for saddling his brother with this yet again, but tamped it down. “And Beatrice.”

“And you take care of yourself,” Robbie said. Carwood pulled him into a hug. Then they shook hands, which made Robbie beam. June looked at them with her hands clasped over her mouth. Carwood dropped down to kiss her cheek. 

“Are you sure this is alright?” he murmured. 

“This was always the plan, wasn’t it?”

In some capacity, yes. If it hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have enrolled in college in the first place. Finding work after high school had been easy. College had been a step beyond. 

“Thank you,” he said. He let the coil of excitement in his heart slip through him, confident in its permanence. Boston, he thought. Boston with Ron. He smiled as Ron stepped forward to thank June for her hospitality. 

A few days before, they’d gotten some alone time again. They’d unabashedly spent it in bed. Carwood hadn’t intended to sleep with Ron this way in his mother’s house, but Ron had been stubborn as usual, and Carwood hadn’t  really wanted to say no anyhow.

He hadn’t had to ask what Ron was after. He’d known by the way he’d tipped them back onto his bed. He’d imagined this particular reunion for months, a film in his head before he went to sleep nearly every night. Ron just like this, salacious in a way that didn’t tease nor hide his intentions, yet sweet in how he asked how Carwood wanted him. But his imagination hadn’t been able to capture the feeling of Ron’s hand on his cock instead of his own. The moan that Ron didn’t bother biting back when he flipped him onto his stomach. His skin, paler now from wintertime sunlight and his ass even paler, nor his yelp when Carwood slid in too fast in his eagerness. He said Carwood’s name in a breathless stream once Carwood found his rhythm, and then it didn’t take long at all for them to spill over.

Carwood’d held Ron close without bothering to pull out, aware that the backwards hug was awkward but too reluctant to give him up. Eventually Ron had wriggled out from under him. He’d kissed Carwood on the lips once, lightly, and done nothing more, apparently content to remain curled up against him, sticky and all. 

Carwood had sought out the tree outside his window - barren now, covered over with ice - and squeezed Ron’s side. They’d only moved when they realized they’d ought to make themselves presentable in case anyone came home early, and even then they’d been reluctant. 

“Ready?” He clapped Ron on the shoulder. 

“Telephone when you get up there,” June said. “And drive safe.”

In the car, Ron curled up on the seat, reminding Carwood of a cat. He looked out the windshield as he sipped from the thermos, offering it to Carwood occasionally. They didn’t speak, not until they got past Huntington’s city line. Then Carwood’s heart began to pound. “God,” he breathed. 

Ron must’ve felt similarly, because he grabbed Carwood’s hand and squeezed tightly, leaving him to manage the highway ramp one-handed. 

This was a perfervid sort of freedom, driving northbound on a late winter morning. They were the only ones on the road. 

And the war had made it possible.

Ron lifted Carwood’s hand and kissed it. Then he put it back on the wheel and put his hand flat on Carwood’s thigh. They sat that way a long while, sunlight streaming through the truck cab and staticky radio in the background as they chased the road northward, toward home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so very much for reading! I'm definitely going to continue to write in this universe, so if you're itching for more postwar speirton, watch this space <3


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